


Heirs' Revolt

by RocksCanFly



Category: DCU, DCU (Animated), Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Canadian Shack Trope But With A Forest Cave, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Political Alliances, Snark, Swordfights, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:52:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 51,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2706356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocksCanFly/pseuds/RocksCanFly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sent to lead the invasion of the northern kingdom of Reginia with his possibly-betrothed, Artemis of the Shadowlands, Prince Kaldur’ahm of Raya is determined to carry out his father’s wishes and prove himself a worthy successor, but a mysterious foe, some unforeseen setbacks and an ever-changing political landscape may force him to reevaluate the role he plays in King David’s plans. </p><p>Join ShadesNinde and RocksCanFly in their ridiculously convoluted and expansive three-part epic tale of harrowing moral choices, whirlwind romances, thrilling adventure, and a wide cast of your favorite gone-but-not-forgotten characters!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fealty

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome friends to the beginning of what has so far been a long and enjoyable collaboration between myself and the wonderful ShadesNinde (find her on tumblr and FF.Net under the same name if you like YJ and well written fic about archers and fishboys). We've only just gotten the first part finished in time for YJ Appreciation Month over on tumblr, and trust when I say we are no where near done. 
> 
> This was wicked fun to write, and I hope that it'll be equally as enjoyable for you all to read. 
> 
> (An assurance: those relationship categories aren't up there for nothing, trust me. The stormy sea that is the universe is going to be CLOGGED with ships and more characters once the next two chapters come out. You'll be wishing for the days of snarky, platonic banter between and from Team Evil Dads, trust me.)

A Map of Nextiste, as Drawn By Rayan Cartographers

* * *

King David of Raya surveyed his war room over folded hands, mouth pressed into a firm line of concentration. From his slightly raised dais, he could easily observe the entirety of the dark room. The large oaken table in front of him was taken up by a large map depicting the various kingdoms of the continent, with his own appropriately centered. His most trusted generals and advisers surrounded said map, trading barbs and debates over tactics and strategies while they waited for him to call the room to order.

To his immediate left sat the envoy from the Savage Lands, Lawrence of Crock, a baron in King Savage's court. David had no fondness for the foreigner, a deceptively clever but needlessly violent man who served as a spy for Savage as much or more than he did as an adviser to David. His daughter was an altogether different matter.

Speaking of which, to David's right sat his pride and joy, Kaldur of Raya ne Shayeris. A strong, brave, and clever boy, Kaldur was quickly approaching ruling age. Though Kaldur could not yet be considered his legitimate heir due to the mishap of his mother's treason, David had high hopes that through this war and an advantageous marriage to Lawrence's daughter, Artemis of Crock, he could successfully push his council to accept the boy as the rightful heir to the throne. Considering the people and the soldiers already adored and respected the boy a great deal, David had no doubt that it would be an easy enough feat to accomplish.

Waiting for the noise from his generals to rise to an appropriate level, David leaned back into his chair.

“Enough,” he said lowly.

Silence fell.

 _It is,_ David thought, _not such a horrible thing to be king._

“I have allotted you adequate time to prepare your reports. General Derrius, your report, please.”

“Your Majesty,” said General Derrius, standing to attention and flashing the royal salute. “Reports from the northern front are grave. The Reginian troops continue to press the advantages of their homeland – in the cliffs and the mists, their arrows find more than enough room to hide, and to sow mayhem among our troops. These cowards trust that if they rain enough steel on our men and women, we will turn course and cease in our attempts to bring their land into the fold of your great kingdom.”

As he spoke, he laid a hand on the map, fingers tracing over the jagged outline of Reginia.

“Following the loss of General Maltus, troop morale is low, but our numbers and our technology remain superior, and we must be unceasing if we are to show the northern barbarians our mettle. I propose we gather a new force, two hundred strong, and lead them to the frontlines. Summer is drawing near. When the mists burn off, the cowards will have nowhere to hide, and our swords will find them.”

He hesitated once more, brow furrowing as he examined the map.

“There is only the matter of who might lead them.”

David straightened in his throne, considering. From the corner of his eye he saw Lawrence tense, eager to offer a suggestion. Silencing the man with a hand, he considered the situation carefully.

He would want someone loyal only to him and his Kingdom – his ranks were already too full by half with men and women of shaky allegiance. Under normal circumstances, not a one of them would be in a position of power, let alone military leadership, but the needs of war made for strange bedfellows indeed.

In addition to loyalty, he would want someone clever, innovative. Many of the very men and women surrounding his table filled his first requirement, but not his second. They were used to fighting battles against the organized and well trained armies of Atlantis, not these sneaking, ill-organized barbarian cowards. Rather than face his army on the field, like true people, they instead lurked in their mists and mountains, harrying his troops and supply lines and whittling down his numbers like wind and rain on stone.

Stone would win out eventually, he knew, but he was not aiming for an eventual victory. Conquering Reginia was only a one task in a larger plan. The sooner Reginia fell, the sooner he could move towards his true goal. He needed someone new, someone young.

“Perhaps your niece, Derrius,” King David said calmly. “I've heard very good reports of the girl from the reserves, and we've all seen how well she's done in the tournaments. What say you? Is the knight ready to step up to the front lines, to become a commander? Your house has shown much in the way of loyalty as of recent times. Giving her command would be an honor worthy of such loyalty.”

Derrius’s eyes widened ever so slightly as he weighed his words.

“My King,” he said haltingly. “You know that nothing would bring me greater honor and pleasure than to have another of my line serve our cause. But Manzia, she is – a tournament is one thing, Your Majesty, but the frontlines are another. She is too raw. I am unsure that sending her would send the message of purpose and confidence you seek to deliver.”

At David’s right side, Kaldur shifted slightly in his chair as he heard the general speak. Kaldur knew what the man was not saying _– she is only sixteen –_ and sympathized. The war had already cost so many of his father’s best their sons and daughters, yet the northern barbarians had yet to let their mountain strongholds fall.  Across the kingdom, whispers had begun to circulate of the futility of war, the hopelessness of ever achieving victory, at least on the northern front. Whoever took to the front to lead the resurgence had to be someone whose name would precede him.

And there it was – the seed of an idea

Kaldur sat back a moment, piecing half a picture together in his head as his father and the general continued to talk over the position. He knew that Father had plans for him – he’d made it clear that soon, they would be discussing the matter of the future of the kingdom, a conversation which frankly made Kaldur’s stomach turn. He had no desire to play the political games required of a prince, no taste for courtly life and pomp, no enthusiasm for making sweeping decisions that would impact those he’d never even seen.

But this – this would be different. Dangerous, without a doubt – in fact, the likelihood that he would come home at all from such a mission seemed far from certain. And yet...even that seemed preferable to what lay in store for him at the palace.

“I will go, Father,” he announced abruptly, his voice cutting into a lull in the meeting entirely by chance, not because he’d been paying the slightest bit of attention to the most recent part of it. “I will lead the reinforcements to the foothills.”

Silence fell over the room. David turned to his son slowly, making every effort to maintain the illusion of calm. His son managed a passably reserved expression, but David knew his boy well enough to catch the glimmer of triumph in his eyes.

He knew well that his son did not relish the prospect of being king. Like most people of his age, his eyes and heart turned towards the field, where danger and glory awaited the bold and clever. Unlike most young fools, however, his son also knew, rather intimately, that death too waited. The boy had lost too many friends to battle to see it as an easy escape from his responsibilities.

What was worse, though, was that David was not the only one who knew these things of his son. Kaldur was well respected by his generals, and by the looks on their faces and the way their eyes weighed heavily on David, he knew that they agreed with Kaldur. To deny Kaldur his request would make it seem as if David were trying to shield his son from danger. It would make David look weak, and his confidence in Kaldur weaker still.

But to allow him this command – that would place Kaldur in a position to prove himself as a leader, not just the capable soldier he already was. While it was true that it would take the boy away from court and out of David's own influence, it would appear to the rest of the court as the logical choice, especially now that Kaldur had volunteered in front of all of David's generals.

The little bastard was too clever by half.

From the corner of his eye, David saw Lawrence signal to him.

“Your Majesty,” he whispered softly when David turned to him. “Perhaps Kaldur's idea would serve you better if he were to be accompanied by a member of my entourage. As your son and a natural candidate for the future leader of your kingdom, it would be better that he begin to build ties with Savage now, would it not?” An evil gleam shone in the man's cold blue eyes. “Perhaps I could suggest my daughter, Artemis, as a suitable second in command?”

Sitting back, David had to force himself not to smile.

Yes, this would serve well indeed. Not only as a way to humble his son for attempting to trap him in front of his own generals, but also as a way to weaken Lawrence’s influence on the palace. Second in command or no, Artemis would serve little purpose to her father as a spy on the front lines. And it would be good to get her away from her father's, and more importantly Savage's, influence.

His boy's impulsiveness and Lawrence’s ambition would trap them both. David wasn't fond of Kaldur's suggestion, but there was the possibility that it could end up working in his favor.

“A fine suggestion, my son,” David said finally, turning to Kaldur. “And the good baron has made one approaching its worth- Artemis of Crock shall accompany you as second in command on the campaign. Unless,” and here David allowed himself a small smile, “You have any objections?”

Kaldur’s jaw tightened slightly. It was not that he dreaded the prospect of setting off with the baron’s daughter – far from it. Artemis had become, of late, his closest friend and his dearest confidante, after they had finally worked through a very awkward initial encounter (which, she assured him, was entirely her father’s idea and not her own).  Rather, he had not meant to entangle her in the bloody war he knew she doubted as much as he did. To risk his life was one matter, but to put hers on the line beside it...

He could not refuse, though, not when the matter had been framed in such practical terms. It was well known in the capital that Artemis was a master spy, a first-class archer and a brave warrior, though she’d had little training as a regimented soldier. To insist she stay behind would make it clear that his motivations for deploying were more complicated than a desire to court victory and honor.

And furthermore, he would miss her. However obnoxious their fathers’ obvious desire to see them wed had become, he could not deny that having her with him would make the whole experience less hellish, perhaps even bearable.

“I have no objections,” he said at last, sensing a note of victory in the way his father jutted his chin just a touch at his words. “Though I humbly request the honor of delivering the news to her myself.”

“Excellent,” David announced, clapping his hands together decisively. “You will leave for the north with the next regiment of reinforcements three days hence. I'm sure that's enough time to make your preparations?”

“Yes, Father,” said Kaldur, inclining his head respectfully, then giving the salute, as Derrius had done. After all, he was a military commander now – not a prince. “Permission to begin preparations immediately?”

More than anything, he wished to find Artemis, to tell her of what had transpired. She deserved enough time to collect up her life.

“Granted,” David said, waving him away. As the door closed behind his son he turned again to his generals. “Now that the matter of the the North-Eastern front has been sorted, I'd like to discuss the North-West. Moravian, what news have you of the siege on the Lakes?”

* * *

Twilight on the northern front, still and cool. With a final glance around the encampment, Kaldur stooped to admit himself to his tent, eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light of his current quarters, where only a small witchlight glowed. Not that it was much lighter outside – between the short autumn days, the wan sliver of a moon, and the dense fog that seemed always to wreathe the forests and the fields of this place, it seemed Reginia never got truly bright. Not like Raya, anyway.

He had expected to miss his homeland more. Yet truthfully, it was a relief to be gone from the pressures of the castle, the political web that he navigated with the sons and daughters of the kingdom’s elite. He and his regiment had left the capital some four days before and made good time, though their progress had been hindered by the fog and the difficulty of traversing the increasingly mountainous terrain. Within a few days they would be deep enough into Reginian territory that they could expect to encounter the foes with whom they had come to do battle – the rogues and guerilla warriors of the north _. Be ever on guard,_ he had told his soldiers from the start. _Your enemy is without honor, and will not make himself known before he strikes._

So far, they had had no incident. Still, the many deaths of Rayan soldiers weighed on Kaldur’s mind. He would be loath to repeat the mistakes of the commanders who had preceded him.

With a sigh, Kaldur reached down to unbuckle his left gauntlet, then his right, setting them atop his pack as he knelt beside his narrow cot. It was traditional for commanders to have more lavish accommodations, and Father had encouraged him to travel in greater luxury – _Your every gesture must demand respect,_ he had said, _or your men will give you none_ – but in the end Kaldur had declined. A more lavish tent was nothing but extra weight on the backs of his soldiers. And besides, fur made him sneeze.

As he knelt, Kaldur saw a glint of metal at the corner of his tent. Wheeling, he drew his right sword.

“You really should be more observant,” his would-be-assailant commented, unfolding from her place in the shadows. Artemis had donned her assassin's garb, a uniform of loose, nondescript grays and navies, specially designed to blend into the stony Reginia mountains. Her voluminous blond hair had been bound back and hidden behind a dark gray hood, all the better to allow her to go unseen in the shadowy land they found themselves fighting to conquer.

“If I were anyone else,” she continued, lighting the lamp that hung overhead in the tent, “You'd be dead, and I'd have to find some other cute, uninterested prince to keep father occupied with,” she finished teasingly, bumping him solidly in the hip.

“A tragedy indeed,” Kaldur attempted to tease back, relaxing and lowering his sword as he hid his embarrassment. It was true that he needed to be more vigilant, particularly as they neared their goal, but it was hardly fair of Artemis – she had trained as a stealth warrior in the Savage Lands practically since birth, and was thus hardly an average assassin. He had yet to make enough of a name to attract _that_ level of hostile attention. “I take it your scouting team has come back in one piece?”

Sheathing his weapon, he took an awkward, armor-hampered seat on his bed roll and patted the space on the cot beside him in invitation. Yes, it would invite talk...but they had grown accustomed to such things, and even reached a mutual understanding about the usefulness of those false impressions.

“One of the new recruits managed to twist an ankle on the way back down the cliff face, but besides that there are no casualties to report,” she replied, settling down beside him. Causally, she drew one of his armored arms up into her lab, smirking at the red that dusted his cheek. Picking at the knots and clasps that held his chest plate together, she continued her report.

“There used to be a small force, about ten to thirteen people, from the looks of it, encamped up on the cliff face about two miles down river from here. The fire pit looked fresh, only a day or so old, so I'm going to assume they saw us and high-tailed it out here to warn whoever it is their forces report to. I'd suggest doubling up guard facing the river, and moving camp about a quarter mile south of here. We've got intelligence that the Reginians are being supplied trebuchets from a certain meddlesome country that we're not technically allowed to call their allies yet, and the cliffs we're under would add to their range enough to cause us problems.”

“Understood,” said Kaldur, frowning at the news of the trebuchets even as he allowed Artemis to continue to remove his armor (it was forward, yes, but she always was, and he knew she meant nothing by it – if he thought she did, he would have stopped her). “From what intelligence we have gathered, I imagine it is more than likely they will strike first, and when they believe us unsuspecting. We would do best to be subtle about how we increase our guard, to lull them into thinking we are unprepared.  Then when they do strike, we may take back the element of surprise.”

As Artemis’s deft fingers undid the last knot, the chestpiece came off, leaving him in light mail over a thin tunic. Nodding his thanks, he let his hands join hers in unbuckling his pauldron, which was the heaviest part of his armor, and also the most decorative, featuring elaborate metalwork of the crest of the Raya kingdom.

“And you,” he asked hesitantly. “You are...in good spirits?”

It was an awkward way to check in, but he had never been very good at friendship, having not had much practice until her arrival in Raya about two years prior. There was one other lieutenant whom he had counted among his trusted companions for some time - Conner, an exile taken in by the Rayan military and raised as a career soldier - but he did not exactly ooze charisma. He and Kaldur were fast friends, but didn’t give each other much practice in the way of conversation.

“Skulking around in fog, clinging to cliff faces for dear life, wading through muddy rivers, all with the added joy of knowing that an arrow could come out at any moment and put an end to me and my entire squad?” she questioned, pulling away the pauldron and setting it respectfully on the rug. Grinning, she turned to face him, arms outspread. “Kaldur, I get to be a spy again! My father is a hundred miles behind me and the only person giving me orders is, well, you!” Laughing, she winkled a knife into her palm that she began to toss hand-over-hand, catching it to gesture at him. “Honestly? If it wouldn’t make the pigfucker so happy, I’d kiss you for this!”

“Well, I am grateful for your restraint,” Kaldur joked, smiling up at her teasingly from his seat on the bedroll.  The knife in her hands did not bother him – she was far too skilled an assassin to drop it, and far too good a friend to turn it against him. “And relieved that I have not caused you too much trouble in dragging you out here to the northlands. It is a dangerous mission, to be sure, but...I am glad to have you by my side, my friend.”

Before he could sink further into sentimentality, though, a quiet knock on the thin wood of the tent post interrupted their meeting.

Kaldur shared a glance with Artemis, rising to his feet and beckoning her back into the shadows.

“Enter,” he called, composing himself. Even half-armored, he needed to be sure his soldiers saw him as a capable leader.

The tent flap was swept aside, and a helmeted head poked inside.

“Good evening, uh, sir,” a gruff yet uncertain voice greeted, and Kaldur instantly relaxed. “Cook wanted you to know the meal’s ready.”

“Thank you, Conner,” the prince replied, offering his friend, a small smile. “We – I will be there shortly.”

Conner nodded stiffly as he retreated, tent flap fluttering awkwardly in his wake.

Artemis turned to Kaldur, expression rueful. “We need to get that boy drunk, sir. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met a guy with a stick shoved further up his rear than that one. It’s an attractive rear, to be sure-,” here she shrugged, to indicate both that she meant no ill will towards Conner and that she did not expect Kaldur to take her suggestions seriously. “-But if we’re going to be stuck stringing the poor boy along on our wild adventures, we need him to loosen up, yeah?”

“You forget whose company you keep,” Kaldur chided, more a joke at his own expense than a rebuke. “You have been attempting to do the same to me for two years, now, and it has not succeeded. I am certain he will grow more comfortable as he finds his place around the other soldiers.  Now come, you must be hungry after your scouting trip.”

Out of habit, he checked to be sure his sword was in its sheath, along with the secondary dagger he carried at his right hip. He would eat for the evening without his full armor, but he would never be caught wholly unarmed, lest his soldiers mistake his trust in them for lowering his guard.

Stepping aside, Artemis gestured him through the opening of the tent, a rare deference to his rank. She kept pace just behind him as they made their way to the mess tent, a large structure near the back of the camp, hidden behind an overcrop of rock that served to conceal the cook fires from scouts watching from the cliffs across the river.

The evening air was cool and heavy with fog and the scent of dinner. It would be fish again tonight- the forward scouts of King David's army were not so foolish as to waste their rations when a river teeming with food ran right by their base camp. Low chatter came from the mess, leaking out of the large tent along with dim lamplight and the warming smell of a good fish stew.

Kaldur let his eyes flick through the surrounding trees, searching for threats as he entered the mess tent. Most of the soldiers had already congregated there – their garrison numbered about ninety, though there were over a hundred more in encampments nearby. Their strike had been segmented in three for the purpose of concealment and scouting. All three were due to reunite at a rendezvous point soon, and kept in contact via messenger hawk. They were never more than a half a day’s ride away from the others. And in a few days...they would make their move.

That thought he did not dwell on. Kaldur did not relish the thought of actual warfare, though he understood its reasons. Raya faced threats from its many enemies, even from its supposed allies, the Savage Lands. The conquest of the North would give them unparalleled control of the river system that mobilized the entire subcontinent. War was necessary to maintain the kingdom, and the barbarians would succumb, but it would not be easy.

As he approached the line, Artemis a step behind him, the men and women of his garrison immediately stood and saluted him, the tent falling abruptly quiet in recognition of his arrival, but he quickly waved them off and took a place at the end of the line. There had been fuss about this, the first day, perhaps a few raised eyebrows, but he firmly believed that respect without reciprocation was meaningless – he would not pretend to be above his soldiers.

The dull roar of conversation that had faded at his entrance picked up again as he and Artemis settled to their places with their food. They occupied the two middle-most seats at the table that headed the mess tent. The seating arrangement was such that Kaldur and anyone sitting by him could easily look down the long tables that sat his soldiers, and vice versa. It made for a good viewpoint, lending itself to a more casual atmosphere than the usual high, raised table for one at which a commander would sit.

It also allowed Kaldur to keep an eye on certain members of his force who, at times, decided that they'd rather not sit at the command table with their peers.

Conner sat, rather predictably, near the end of the leftmost table. The young man was surrounded by younger soldiers, many of whom seem to have fixated on him as a role model, mistaking his almost painful shyness for rough stoicism.

Next to Kaldur, Artemis snorted.

“I see,” she observed. “The good Lord Conner doesn't see fit to grace us with his presence, your Grace.” She leaned in close to Kaldur, sniffing theatrically at his shoulder. “Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you smell of dank river water,” here she grinned slyly. “Again.”

“You are one to talk,” Kaldur scoffed back, dipping a piece of bread into his stew and taking a bite. “At least I have bathed in recent memory.”

“Excuse me for not enjoying freezing my nether regions off,” she retorted sharply, ripping her roll open with a knife. “Some of us weren't born with icewater in our blood, Your Grace. Honestly, between my skill and your and Conner's ridiculous immunities to the cold, I hardly think we even need your father's army to bring these barbarians to heel,” she boasted, filling the roll with stew. It was an odd way of eating by Kaldur's own reckoning, but Artemis assured him it was similar something she called ‘dumplings’- a meal from her mother's lands.

Kaldur shook his head and hid a smile in his next spoonful of stew, letting the noise of the camp rise up to fill the silence between them. Soon, though, he became aware of more noise than there ought to have been – a quarrel, across the mess somewhere. He lifted his head up to seek out the source of the commotion and spotted it: three newer recruits, on the far side of the tent, engaged in some kind of heated argument, though at this distance it was difficult to tell about what. Narrowing his eyes, Kaldur waited a moment to see if the issue would resolve itself, but instead, it seemed to grow worse, drawing more attention from the soldiers around.

Finally, when one of the men involved put a hand to the hilt of his sword, Kaldur stood. He had just opened his mouth to issue a command for silence when one of the women in the arguing trio jumped to her feet and dealt the man a stinging blow to the face, an act that sent a ripple of noise through the crowd. Before anyone could so much as place a bet, the man had drawn his blade and taken a swing at the woman, the blade whistling past her and clipping the mail sleeve of a man seated nearby.

As the inevitable chaos broke loose, newcomers rising to add their shouts to the existing dispute, Kaldur gritted his teeth and began to advance toward the group, pace deliberate, expression supremely unamused.

Artemis stayed seated, seemingly content to watch the chaos unfold. From what she’d told him of her time training in the Shadowlands, it wasn’t surprising that she viewed the brawl as entertainment more than anything else.

Conner caught Kaldur’s eye as he passed, motioning with his head to see if Kaldur wanted backup. Kaldur laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder- he did not require assistance in handling a few recruits.

One of the six soldiers engaged in the brawl saw her commander approaching like a quiet storm and immediately snapped to attention. The other five continued their fight. The man who’d been clipped by the instigator’s sword had disarmed his attacker and was currently struggling to choke the man from behind, one arm hooked around his shoulder and the other pressing into his throat. The woman and the other man who had been involved in the fight were fending off a woman who appeared to be trying to come to the aid of the instigator, keeping themselves between her and the other pair.

Kaldur gave a ghost of a nod to the woman who had had the good sense to quit when she saw him approaching. Head level, hand on his blade, he came to a halt directly in front of the five who had not yet noticed his presence. When a moment further had passed and they had still not acknowledged him, he stepped to the side, slammed his fist into the nearest table, and barked out a sharp shout of “enough!”

The sound would have been alarming enough had it not been paired with the look of unmistakable anger on Kaldur’s face, but with it, it was enough to make the five scramble to rise and salute, a jumbled concoction of apologies and excuses falling from their mouths. He waved them off.

“Have you forgotten,” he began, voice deadly quiet now, “that we are here to do battle with the barbarians of Reginia? Or are you under the impression that we are here to emulate them?”

“Sir, we – I – “ one of the women began.

But before she could finish, a sudden flash of light seared into the tent through the fabric on the front side, whistling down and burying itself in the wood of the table beside them.

It was an arrow – a flaming arrow, Kaldur noticed with some alarm.

“To arms!” he called out immediately, but in as long as it had taken him to say as much, another burning shaft had torn through the tent and landed on the ground just beside the cook’s preparation table.

 _The preparation table,_ Kaldur realized, _where all the camp’s cook oil sat in a wooden barrel._

“Conner, evacuate the mess,” Kaldur shouted, dumping a nearby cup of water on the flaming arrow that had buried itself in the table beside him.

“Everyone out of the tent, now!” Conner bellowed, eyes widening as he followed Kaldur’s gaze. “Regroup under the overhang, but stay away from the tent!”

The soldiers jumped quickly to their feet, hurrying in orderly chaos to the exit flaps.

Conner followed them out, nodding to Kaldur to indicate that he would keep the soldiers under control while Kaldur took care of the fire.

Artemis appeared by his side, hood up and bow strung and clenched tightly in one fist.

“You need any help here?” she questioned, pulling Kaldur low under a table. It wouldn’t do if their commander got skewered with an arrow meant for the cooking oil.

Kaldur shook his head. _No._

“I’m going to go flank around the river, see if I can find the goatfuckers who are shooting at us. Watch your back while I’m gone, okay? It’s pretty convenient that they seem to know exactly where we keep the cooking oil in our covered tent.”

With that she was off, slipping quietly out one of the back exits, facing away from the river. The dark greys and browns of her attire blended into the fog and dappled shadows of the landscape, rendering her nigh invisible only a few meters away. The unsuspecting barbarians trying to ambush them would never even see her coming.

Another arrow zipped through the tent, thudding down on the table right above the oil barrel, snapping Kaldur back to the task at hand.

Emerging from beneath the table, Kaldur took stock of the area - three more flaming arrows had met their mark, though one had fizzled out in the mist-damp wood of the table. The other two had found purchase on the cloth-topped cook’s table, where the flames had begun a nascent blaze that was slowly but surely making its way toward the oil.

For an instant, he contemplated snatching the barrel up, eliminating the danger with his bare hands, but it was too far away, and the maneuver too risky - if he miscalculated even by a few seconds, it would explode, and he would be ashes before he even found the frontlines. No, he would have to quell the fire directly.

Falling into casting stance - feet spread shoulder-breadth, arms parallel to the ground - Kaldur took a deep breath and began to rotate his hands in slow circles, drawing from within the mystic energy that connected him to the water around him. The river was too far off and he was too untrained a mage to call on it, but the fog was thick, and he could feel it humming with the power that ran through his own veins, birthright of his water-witch mother. Closing his eyes, he focused on that power, fingers twisting in the fluid motions he’d worked so hard to learn.

Another arrow zipped into the tent, striking one of the support posts only a foot or so to his right, but he did not flinch, and at last, the fog began to twist and curl with his motions, condensing into something more liquid, more substantial, a stream that stayed suspended in the increasingly smoky air. In that instant, the fire jumped, sparking across the open air in a magnificent arc toward the oil barrel. Only a few seconds to eat through the wood, and the whole mess would be up in flames….

With a grunt of exertion, Kaldur flicked his hands forward and sent the mass of floating water flying toward the impending disaster.

The water and fire met in an explosion of steam, which Kaldur bounded forward hurriedly to recondense; the second time he sent it crashing down over the flames, they withered into embers. The third time - a fresh bout of water, drawn in from the fog around the tent - left the table doused and cold, and the air around them eerily clear.

The fall of arrows seemed to have decreased by then, but to be sure there would be no more accidents, Kaldur drenched the rest of the table and barrel in water. He then quickly moved the barrel, rolling it far away from its original place to a remote corner of the tent and stashing it beneath one of the long dining tables.

Oil secured, he hurried to see how Conner and the rest were faring. Exiting the tent, he was grateful to see that it seemed no one had thus been injured. Conner had done well- the soldiers were formed up in their squads behind the overhang, grouped in close to achieve maximum protection. Many of them had brought their shields with them to the mess tent and had overlapped them near the rear of the formation to create a protective barrier above those who would not be as well hidden from the cliffs by the overhang.

On spotting him, Conner called out, “Commander! Is the fire handled?”

“It is,” Kaldur confirmed, eyes scanning the dim landscape as he emerged from the mess tent. “Though the enemy clearly knows about our camp than he ought.  Do not let your guard down just yet.”

Noting that the hail of arrows had ceased, Kaldur set about dealing with the next of their problems – the fools responsible for the distraction. With a final glance into the dim treetops, he stepped out of the shadow of the tent and began to cross over toward his soldiers, searching among their faces for the imbeciles who had startled the altercation in the mess. He would need to make an example of them, later, perhaps extra supplies to haul, or additional duties caring for the draft horses (he would not consider cutting their rations – a hungry force was a weak force).

But before he could reach them, another arrow came hurtling out of the sky, this time from the cliffs above. Before Kaldur had time to blink, much less dodge, it had pierced his mail shift and thudded deep into his shoulder, wrenching an unbidden cry of pain from his lips. Hand flying to the wound, he fell to his knees.

“Kaldur!” Conner shouted, hefting his long shield in hand. He sprinted out from beneath the overhang, keeping the shield between his upper body and the cliffs. Upon reaching Kaldur he grabbed the wounded man by the waist with one arm, hefting him close. An arrow thudded off his shield as he backed back towards the cliffs, dragging Kaldur with him.

The ranks parted to let the two in towards the base of the overhang. Once there, Conner settled Kaldur gingerly against the rock wall, kneeling beside him.

A healer rushed up from the middle of the formation, medical bag already open as she rummaged in it for her supplies. Out came a small bottle of clear liquid, followed by a wad of clean linen.

“Have him open his mouth, please,” the healer said, addressing Conner as she pressed the linen to Kaldur’s chest. “Then help me get this armor off of him.”

“The archers are still out there,” Conner said uncertainly.

The healer huffed. “And we’re behind a great big rock, with our Commander bleeding out from an arrow wound that I can’t treat if it’s behind chainmail.”

“Conner,” Kaldur grit through his teeth. “Kindly stop arguing with the woman and get this thing out of me. But I will take no opium,” he asserted, eyeing the bottle. “It would be unwise.”

The healer opened her mouth as if to argue, saw the look in Kaldur’s eye, and seemed to think better of it.

“We can’t pull the arrow out yet, your Grace,” she said respectfully instead, as if he’d just remembered that Kaldur being wounded didn’t mean he was deaf. “Unless we pull it out correctly, the tip will get stuck and cause infection, even death.”

“Then how do we get the armor off?” Conner snapped.

Rather than responding, the healer produced a small saw from her kit and shortened the arrow shaft, removing the fletched portion. “Now we can pull his armor off around it. Slip your hand beneath the shirt and steady the arrow while I work the mail off of it,” she directed.

Once Conner had followed her instructions, the healer carefully began to pull the chainmail out and away from Kaldur’s body. The attempt jarred the shaft, causing Kaldur to wince and huff in pain. Eventually the maneuver was done, though, and the healer directed Kaldur to hold his arms over his head so she could remove the shirt. This process, too, was a painful one- but it was necessary for her to be able to treat the wound.

“This would be much easier if His Grace were to take the opium,” the healer muttered.

“Again,” Kaldur grit out, the voice tight with pain, “We are still under attack. I do not have the luxury of a clouded mind, pain or no.”

The woman did not deign to reply, instead setting to work on Kaldur’s chest. First she cut away the blood-sodden undershirt, then directed Conner to help Kaldur to his back on the ground.

“Give him this,” she directed, passing Conner a thick strip of leather. “He’s going to need it when I pull the shaft out. Let’s pray these barbarians know how to bind their arrow heads properly- I’d rather not have to dig around in his shoulder to find it if it snaps off.”

Complying, Conner offered the strip for Kaldur to bite down on. Once it was secure, Kaldur nodded to the healer to proceed.

“Sir Conner, hold His Grace down for this. The pain will be, uh. Quite intense.”

Conner braced his hands against Kaldur’s uninjured shoulder, securing his other side by pressing down on the other man’s pectoral.

Once Kaldur was secure, the healer wrapped her hands tightly around the remainder of the shaft, close to Kaldur’s body as possible, braced herself on her knees, and pulled.

Kaldur had prepared himself to make no sound at all – his soldiers were watching, and he would be damned before he appeared weak in front of them – but the agony that accompanied the ripping of the arrowhead from his flesh was sharper than he could possibly have anticipated. A bellow of anguish, muffled by the leather strap, erupted from his throat as his back arched unbidden.

After one blood-searing moment, though, it was over, leaving him shuddering on his back and gasping for breath. He could see the arrowhead in the healer’s crimsoned hand, though it was swimming before him. So much for a clear mind.

“Artemis,” he managed to utter as he turned his head to spit out the leather strap. “She has gone after our attackers, alone. She is  - “ he hissed in fresh pain as the healer applied a new wad of linen to his freely bleeding shoulder – “see to it that she returns safely. Conner, take a…a squad, ensure that she…”

“Your Grace, I’m really going to have to request that you stop trying to speak. You need to calm down and breathe more shallowly- you’re aggravating your wound,” the healer said kindly, one hand soft on his shoulder while the other packed clean cotton wadding into the wide puncture the arrow had left.

“Artemis would kill me if I sent a ‘clumsy, clanging pack of trumpeting elephants’ after her,” said Conner stiffly, shifting Kaldur carefully so he was lying flat on the ground at a motion from the healer. “She can handle herself against a few barbarians. If she’s not back in half an hour, I’ll lead a small team to go look for her.”

Kaldur, apparently too weakened to argue, didn’t respond, instead allowing himself to be maneuvered to the ground.

Conner finished settling his friend, then looked about at the soldiers still huddled beneath the overhang. Most of them seemed concerned for their commander- all of them had pressed in closer to the center. Whether it was to get a look at Kaldur or to avoid being the next victim of the Reginian archers, Conner couldn’t guess. He suspected it was a mix of both.

“Lieutenant!” he barked, summoning the nearest soldier whose single black stripe on his red armband marked him as a low-ranking officer. “I want a status report ready for the commander in five minutes,” he demanded as the man hurried up to him. “I want a list of our wounded, an assessment of damages, an approximate direction for the arrow fire, and a rough count of how many arrows fell on the camp total. Don’t leave the overhang- just get the ranks beneath the shields to start counting by what they can see. I want to get an estimate on how many people the Reginians had firing on us.”

“Conner – Artemis, she mentioned that there may be-” Kaldur rasped from the ground.

“-Yessir, I’ll get accountability of the entire element as soon as we have confirmation from Lady Artemis that the Reginians have left the area,” Conner said quickly, then blushed deeply. He was mortified to have cut Kaldur off like that, but the man was hardly conscious due to blood loss and wasn’t thinking clearly. The commander never would have mentioned the possibility of a spy in their camp in front of a low-ranking officer otherwise.

“I – “ Kaldur began, more to assert that he could still speak than to give an order, then remembered the medic’s warning and shut his mouth as a wave of nausea rolled over him. He shut his eyes, trying to focus on anything but the pain and the way the world was revolving rapidly around him, and slipped quickly into darkness.

* * *

 

When he awoke, it was to sunlight streaming over his head through an opened tent flap, and a persistent throbbing sensation just above his left clavicle. He had been stripped to the waist and laid out on a crudely built cot, doubtlessly in the medical tent. As the previous evening’s events rushed back to him, he let out a soft curse at his own stupidity and tried to sit up, an endeavor that immediately proved overambitious. A louder curse escaped his lips and he lowered himself back down, turning his head to try and get a look at the injury.

“For a commander who’s so merciful to his subordinates, you really don’t know how to do your own body any favors, do you, Your Grace?” drawled a drained but amused voice to the right.

Gingerly, Kaldur turned his head to survey the tent, seeking out the shadows where he knew Artemis would eventually reveal herself from.

“Down here,” came a whisper.

With considerable difficulty, he managed to shift himself so he was looking down at the floor.

Artemis smiled up at him from her bedroll. She looked exhausted and more than a little filthy, like she hadn't taken a break since coming back from her mid-ambush recon.

“Hey there handsome,” she said, voice tired. “I’m not sure how I feel about the extra hole that bastard punched in you, but I can’t say I mind the view.”

Kaldur fought conflicting urges to laugh and to scowl, and ended up just twisting his mouth awkwardly as he reached down with his good hand to draw the blankets up further. He was not a terrifically self-conscious person, at least not physically, but Artemis always had a way of drawing out that side of him. She loved to watch him squirm, and well...who was he to deny her that pleasure?

“You are back safely,” he commented, trying not to sound too relieved, lest he imply he had doubted her abilities in any way - he had not, but he was still glad to see that his best friend remained in one piece. “And none too clean. Are there bodies we ought to be sending soldiers to bury?”

Her face twisted into an ugly scowl. “Actually, I’ve got some good news and some bad news on that front.” Sitting up and shifting her blankets, she presented him with a small, watertight bag.

“I recovered those from the site I found overlooking the river,” she commented as he took it. “There were a lot of small bones in the fire pit, indicating that either a small squad was there for a few days or, more worryingly, one scout’s been watching us for weeks. I only found one spot that looked like it’d been slept in, though. So I’m leaning more towards the later than the former. And that’s,” she paused, taking a breath. Gently, she opened the drawstrings of the bag, then tipped it over from Kaldur’s hands into her own.

“That’s without looking at this,” she said tightly. She sounded  worried. It was an emotion Kaldur wasn’t used to hearing from her, and it set him on edge.

Out of the bag tumbled a small roll of vellum bound to a jagged arrowhead. The arrowhead was made of a strange material, glassy and a deeper black than anything Kaldur had ever seen, even his father’s legendary armor, for which his family’s line was named.

Carefully, Artemis unwound the arrowhead’s binding, setting it to the side as she unrolled the vellum.

Slowly, she read: _“‘Let’s see if you prove more of a challenge than your general, Prince of Raya.’”_

Kaldur’s brow furrowed at her words. Silently, he reached out his hand for the scroll; Artemis leaned over to place it in his palm, careful not to make him reach too far lest he strain his shoulder, and he nodded his thanks.

His eyes crossed the vellum, tracing the form of the script. The penmanship was elegant, rehearsed – whomever it belonged to clearly had noble blood enough to have learned and practiced the art of letters.

“Help me sit up,” he requested.

“You shouldn’t _be_ sitting up.”

“I am not as delicate a thing as you take me for,” said Kaldur, a touch of impatience in his voice. “I will do it myself if you will not assist me.”

“You’re impossible,” said Artemis, scowling and pushing aside her covers and to crawl to his bedside. On her knees, she helped leverage him into a sitting position, pretending not to see the grimace of pain that crossed his face as she did so. He would have done the same for her.

Kaldur nodded his thanks, laying the vellum out on his lap and studying it in the better light.

“So it is the Fiend of the Mists again,” he remarked in a low voice. “Come to dissuade us from our march with his threats and his cowardly sniping.”

“I still can’t get over how you people gave that sorry excuse for an archer such a title to live up to. If I’d had a shot like the one your imbecilic behind apparently gave them, you’d be lying in a much less comfortable bed, keeping company with worms,” Artemis commented wryly. The tremble in the corner of her waning smirk gave away the ruse, though - her half-hearted insults couldn’t undo the gaping hole in her best friend’s shoulder. She was just one lone shadow- nowhere near enough to shield Kaldur from this foe, not if he insisted on running out into the open to attend to every wayward idiot who caused dissent amongst his troops.

“I assure you that it was not my intention to get shot,” Kaldur remarked, still contemplating the noble arches of his would-be-assassin’s script.

“By the gods- Your Grace! What do you think you’re doing!” came an irate growl from the tent entrance. The healer from before, a dark woman of short hair and sharp, expressive features, hurried over to Kaldur’s bedside.

“You’re going to undo the stitches if you insist on stretching it like that,” she groused. “Please, lie back down.”

“My shoulder is in exactly the same posi - “ Kaldur began, before he caught a glimpse of murder in his medic’s eyes, thought better of it, and immediately fell silent. Passing the vellum back to Artemis, he reclined back onto the bed with the newcomer’s insistence, letting out only the softest hiss of pain as he unfolded the last few inches. “What is the damage, healer?”

“Raquel,” she told him as she set down her kit, a tidy satchel of little packets and bottles. “I imagine we’ll be seeing a plenty of each other for the next while, so you might as well know my name. And you’ll live, Commander, but it may be a few weeks before you can heft a shield again.”

“You should have been carrying one last night,” Artemis cut in, frowning at Kaldur. Raquel’s eyebrows raised slightly at the admonition, certainly out of rank and perhaps out of line, but Kaldur merely shut his eyes and nodded.

“I was not thinking of my own safety,” he admitted. “Once the tent was secure, I thought only of the...the other danger.”

He met eyes with Artemis, silently asking the question - was Conner investigating the apparent betrayal of one of their number?

Artemis glanced sidelong at Raquel, tilting her head slightly in question. Was it safe to discuss this in front of someone neither of them knew?

At Kaldur’s slight shake, no, Artemis replied noncommittally:

“I already gave you the report,” she said. “There’s no information that I haven’t shared with you.” _No news, but we’re looking._

Kaldur gave a slight nod over Raquel’s shoulder, making it clear that he understood.

“Your healing is coming along remarkably well, considering you took the arrow less than a day ago,” Raquel remarked, finished with her investigation of Kaldur’s wound packing, “How’s the pain, Highness?”

“It is manageable,” Kaldur replied, wincing as she dabbed a small amount of salve to the surrounding skin. The substance burned, but he recognized the smell - honey. It would keep the site clean and moist (not that the morning fog wasn’t doing the latter plenty well already).

“Liar,” muttered Artemis from her bedroll.

“Am I not managing?” Kaldur asked her pointedly.

“All right then,” Raquel interjected, putting away the salve. “Charming as your sweet nothings may be, I think it’d be a good idea for His Grace to get some rest.”

“We still have more to discuss,” Artemis said lowly, arching her brow. Raquel was more demanding and willing to speak her mind than Artemis was used to from Raya’s militaristic citizens.

“Chit-chat all you want,” said Raquel. “I won’t stop you. Just keep his royal posterior on that bed and don’t ask him to think too hard.”

“You won’t stop me,” Artemis echoed, voice flat and incredulous. “You are aware of whom you’re speaking to, soldier?”

“Extremely,” said Raquel, looking down at her kit. Snapping it shut, she straightened out and slung it over her shoulder. “Though with all due respect, Lady Artemis, I’m a healer, not a soldier.”

Artemis’s legs curled around, eyes narrowing as she prepared herself to stand.

“Are you getting smart with me, _soldier_?”

“Enough,” Kaldur cut in, obediently reclined on his cot. Unable to lift his arms or make any sort of accompanying gesture, he shut his eyes. “Raquel - you are dismissed. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” said Raquel, lips pressed tight. She turned to leave, but paused with the tent flap up, her back to the two who remained inside it.

“There’s a world of difference doing your job for your country,” she said, pausing in the opening, “and taking senseless orders just because someone in power barks loud enough. I’d respectfully suggest you learn the difference, Shadowlander.”

And without another word, she’d left.

Artemis was on her feet before the flap had fallen, mouth opening in advance of a furious retort, but once again, Kaldur cut in:

“My friend,” he said, voice neither harsh nor admonishing, just tired. “Is there not discord enough among our ranks already?”

Artemis gritted her teeth.

“You can’t let your own soldiers walk over you like that,” she shot back, fists clenched at her sides. “Especially now that you’re wounded - you can’t try and win everyone’s favor, Your Grace, you have to show that you’re still in command, or they’ll - “

“ - speak to me as you do?” Kaldur interrupted, arching an eyebrow.

“I’m not one of your soldiers,” Artemis huffed defensively, before she happened to glance down and see the expression on Kaldur’s face - tired, pained, certainly, but with a fond amusement in his eyes. He was teasing, not rebuking.

“Fine,” she relented. “I’ll let it go, but just this one time. She’s right about one thing, at least - you need to rest.”

“As you command,” Kaldur murmured, eyes already slipping shut. “When I awaken next, we will amend our plans to accommodate my idiocy. I expect a...a full report.”

Scarcely was the sentence over when his chest resumed a deep, steady rise and fall. He was asleep.

Staring down at her unconscious commander, Artemis fought simultaneous urges to roll her eyes and to tuck him in. The man was a fool - a stubborn, prideful, overanalytical fool...and her best friend. Perhaps her only friend.

“Yes sir,” she muttered, opting for the eye-rolling option, and swept out of the tent.

* * *

“Three weeks,” Kaldur muttered, setting aside the small scroll on which he’d just copied his latest instructions to his officers. He wiped the quill dry, lips pressed into a dissatisfied frown. “By this time, we’d planned to be in the Starbridge Wood, ready to strike when the fogs lifted.”

“Well, some of our troops are there,” Artemis pointed out, leaning against the tent-pole and eyeing what he’d written. “And the fogs certainly are, too, so you haven’t missed anything yet. No use beating yourself up when the enemy already has.”

Kaldur bit back an uncharacteristic scowl. A score of days spent leading from behind and bearing witness to heated staring contests between his second-in-command and his only decent healer had done little to lighten his mood, but it was not fair to take his frustration out on Artemis. She had been nothing but helpful to him, keeping the recruits in line and making sure he was able to communicate with those who still pressed forward into Reginia, a march his injury had prevented him from joining.

“Any word from Conner?” he asked, setting two small stones on either end of the scroll to hold it open while it dried. “How do the new recruits fare?”

“Still stepping on his heels,” Artemis replied, rolling her eyes. “I swear to the gods they’d follow him off a cliff if he led them there.”

“It is good that they trust him,” said Kaldur. “When the time comes, perhaps he should be the one to lead them in battle.”

A rap at the front tent-pole caught both their attention; Kaldur set aside the inkwell and sat up in his bed.

“Enter,” he ordered.

“A messenger from the capital, Commander,” said a voice as the tent flap pulled back.

Into the tent came a man, thin and willowy, his shoulders wrapped in a lavish, fur-lined cloak that seemed starkly out of place in the military encampment. As he entered, his eyes swept around the tent in obvious appraisal, before he dipped his head in a gesture of deference and turned to Kaldur.

“I come bearing healing gifts, Your Grace,” the small man said, presenting Kaldur with a tiny, pearlescent jar. It was about the size of a snuff box, and if seemed to glow with an eerie red light.

Artemis stepped forward and plucked it from the man’s hands, scrutinizing it. The young man’s grey eyes widened at her boldness, his thin lips twisting momentarily in a displeased grimace before he quickly schooled his face back into placid subservience.

“The gift is meant for his Grace,” he said lightly, gesturing that Artemis should hand the jar over to Kaldur.

“And I’m the person whose job it is to intercept threats for His Grace,” she shot back snidely. She seemed to regard the man with blatant disrespect, even distrust. “What is this, anyways?” she demanded, holding it disdainfully. “It smells like Savageland spices- not exactly known for their healing properties, are they?”

The young man scowled, grabbing for the jar. “Give it to me before you break it and make it so my entire journey was for naught,” he snapped, stamping his foot. He seemed for a moment more like a spoiled child than an envoy, no matter where he may have come from.

“Artemis,” Kaldur cut in, sitting up – the pain was not such an issue now, except when he attempted to lift things with his left arm (generally a useful ability in war). “Our guest has come a long way. Let us not forget our manners just because we stand beneath camp tents and not castle turrets.”

He held out his hand for the jar, which his friend reluctantly passed over, her brow furrowing in what looked like anger, but he suspected was more worry on his behalf.

“Did my father send you?” he asked the man. “Have you word from the capital?”

“Yes and yes,” the young man replied, smoothing his robes and hair in a play-act at regaining his composure. “Excuse my rudeness, your Grace. I am Tricklieon Nighthawk. I was sent by my King, Vandal Savage, on behalf of himself and your father. You father sends this letter,” Tricklieon handed him a sizable scroll of vellum, sealed with King Manta’s seal and produced from one of the man’s billowing sleeves. “And his well-wishes. My master sends the ointment, which, despite _some_ people's unfounded and frankly _insulting_ misconceptions,” here Trickleion paused for dramatic effect, shooting a glare in Artemis’s direction, “is made from powerful Capital healing magic and our local medicines. Our land produces great magics of all kinds, you Grace, and the Capital is the epicenter of that greatness,” Tricklieon asserted firmly. “Which is more than I can say for the Shadowlands,” he finished smugly, smirking.

“If by healing you mean necromantic, I’m sure the salve is very potent,” Artemis sneered back. “There is a reason you people up in the scrub are so desperate to send Shadowlanders to conquer other lands for you, boy. The only thing that grows in that godforsaken desert is poison.”

“Lady Artemis,” Kaldur said again, more pointedly this time. “Perhaps you would do me the favor of checking to see if the cook has anything for our guest to eat.”

He gave her a meaningful look – being forward with him was one thing, but being unabashedly rude to someone in a position of power with King Savage was another. He knew that the alliance between Raya and the Savage Lands was a tense one to begin with. The last thing he needed was for his second-in-command to trigger animosity between Raya and the one neighbor with which it wasn’t actively at war.

The archer held his eyes for a moment, clearly itching to push the matter further, but at the last moment she jabbed her head sharply (a nod of deference?) and made to duck out of the tent.

“Wait one moment, Shadowlander,” Tricklieon interjected. “I’ve brought a message from your father as well.”

He produced yet another scroll from his seemingly infinite sleeves and held it out toward her.

She recoiled, and a reprimand hung on Kaldur’s tongue until he noticed that her eyes fixed not on Tricklieon but on the vellum itself. Her expression was apprehensive, her body language tense.

Then, with a sigh, she gathered herself and accepted the scroll, tucking it into one of the innumerable pockets hidden in the depths of her uniform.

“Thanks,” she said flatly, and not waiting for Tricklieon’s response, she left quickly. As the flap closed Kaldur noted that she was headed not in the direction of the mess, but towards her private quarters.

“Your bride-to-be is rather, hm. _Fiery_ , for a noblewoman, isn’t she?” Tricklieon mused, watching her exit with an unreadable expression.

“My second-in-command is sharp of tongue, mind and blade, yes,” Kaldur replied flatly. “I thank you for your troubles, Lord Nighthawk.  I would have my tent now, to make use of your salve and to see what my Father has to say to me – do you require anything for your journey home? Provisions, a place to rest for one night...?”

“Ah,” the man tutted, brushing his golden hair back with a dramatically apologetic look. “I knew there was something of import that I had failed to mention, distracted as I was by that sharp tongue.” Tricklieon produced yet another scroll, this one of exceedingly fine parchment and sealed with the now-familiar seal of Vandal, High King of the Savage Lands.

“Orders,” the little man said lightly, “From my King. I am to stay here for a few weeks, to survey your progress.” At Kaldur’s look of offense, he amended, “It isn’t that we don’t trust your reports, Your Grace, or doubt your competence. But the Savage Lands are heavily invested in this little venture of ours, and the King likes to keep a close, personal eye on his investments. I trust this will be of no issue to you?” he finished, and the smile he gave Kaldur was almost challenging, his tone honeyed to the point where, were Kaldur a more prideful man, he would suspect the man of mockery.

Kaldur took the scroll, unrolling it and letting his eyes skim across the words. Though he took care not to let the look on his face express the depth of his dissatisfaction, he was certain the newcomer could sense that he was less than pleased.

“Very well,” Kaldur said at last, setting the scroll aside. “I suppose given that I am the one who foolishly stepped into enemy fire, complicating our advance, I have no grounds on which to contest such an order. We welcome the honor of your presence. Have you traveled with accommodations, or will you require a tent?”

Inwardly, he cursed the political spiderweb that tied his hands. It was bad enough that he was near-bedridden, confined to wandering the camp for a few hours each day to meet with the captains who were still forging ahead. Now he had to deal with this condescending politician as well.

Trickleion's smile seemed to barely resist becoming a sneer. “Your offer is, while quite kind, unnecessary. I was apprised of the, well, conditions here on the front--,” here he glanced down at his polished leather boot. It was currently coated in the thick, sucking mud that was an unfortunate result of the camp's new location in the marshy area off the river bend. “--Before I set out- I brought my own living arrangements, as well as attendants. I merely require a place to set up my little camp, and then you'll hardly know I'm here at all,” he finished, seemingly unaware of his own slip.

Kaldur had suspected that there were spies in his camp from the Savage Lands. The fact that Tricklieon had, apparently, been somehow made aware of the camp's unfortunate mud problem despite the fact that Kaldur had specifically avoiding sending any details about the camp's conditions or location beyond the barest basics in his reports proved it. It would be a disaster if the enemy intercepted reports containing clues as to where his camp was hidden- but apparently his own reports weren't the only information leaving the camp that he needed to work on censoring.

“We will find you a spot near the rear of the camp,” Kaldur allowed, choosing to keep the accusation of spying for a later date. “It will be safer there.”

“Oh, I'm not worried about my safety,” Tricklieon scoffed. “I have more confidence in your competence than that. Rather, why don't you place me next to your own tent? It'd help me keep better apprised of the goings-on,” he finished, this time with another one if his bows.

Kaldur's fingers tightened on the salve jar. Toes curling in his boots, he fought the temptation to kick the man in the face from where he sat on his bed. At first he had assumed the bows were a sign of respect, but it was quickly becoming apparent that the foreign ingrate had no concept of such a thing, and was using the gesture to mock him.

 _'Yes, by all means, rearrange my **entire** camp so your tent can be by mine- just so long as you don't mind my sword being shoved through your eavesdropping ear when you lean against the tent walls to more clearly hear all the fascinating details of our intriguing and treacherous daily life,' _ Kaldur thought bitterly. _'Like slogging through this damned swamp and crawling hands and knees through three miles of solid fog to get the information **your** King demands and then does **nothing** with. You little **viper**.'_

Aloud, he replied, “Perhaps a compromise- there is ample room behind my tent, and but the medical tent behind it. If we were to both set up where that tent currently is and move it in front, there would be plenty of room for you,” _and hopefully you'd get dragged into the night by one of the barbarians' marsh spirits,_ he added silently.

Tricklieon nodded, looking satisfied with the compromise. “I'll begin making the arrangements immediately--”

“What in the gods' names are you holding?” Raquel interjected as she entered, holding Kaldur's daily change of bandages in one hand. “Whatever that red mess is, His Grace had best not be planning on slathering it on his wound before he gets the advice of his healer,” she reprimanded sharply, shoving past Tricklieon to examine the salve. Sniffing it, she exclaimed- “Savage Land spices- are you trying to get an infection?”

“What does your soldier think she's doing?” Tricklieon exclaimed furiously. “Get your hands off of that, you wench! And how dare you insult King Savage's gift to your commander- that salve is worth more than the lives of you and your entire backwater village combined!”

Raquel froze, face contorting in rage like Kaldur had never seen from her before, not in even in the most heated of her frequent debates with Artemis. She turned towards the diplomat, hand raised as if to strike him-

Kaldur caught her wrist gently. “I have been quite assured of the value of your gift,” he said lowly, addressing Tricklieon. “But Healer Ervin is my medic- she is a trained professional, and one of the most valued members of my command. In Raya, we treat one of such vital importance and selfless service with respect. I demand that you issue an apology to her immediately- you are a guest here, sir, and I will _not_ tolerate you harassing my subordinates,” he finished icily releasing his gentle grip on Raquel. Somewhat mollified, she settled back to await Tricklieon's response.

The blond man stood gaping like a fish, jaw working back-and-forth in obvious shock and rage. “I will not _apologize_ to a _peasant_ ,” he spat. “Your customs be damned. If you need me, _Your Grace_ , I will be seeing to my tent. Make sure your **_healer_** ,” he sneered the word, eyeing Raquel with distaste, “Moves her tent when she's done 't _ending to your wound_ ',” he finished, sweeping out of the tent with a swish of colored robes and toss of his hair.

“That little shit,” Raquel grit out, tensed with anger. “Did he honestly just imply--”

“--Implications or not,” Kaldur snapped, somewhat annoyed at her, “You must learn to check your tongue when talking to Savage Lands officials- they do not share the same customs as ourselves, but we need to be able to work with them. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Raquel retorted bitterly. “Well, Your Grace, may this lowly peasant treat your arrow wound, or are her hands now unworthy to touch your person?”

Sighing, Kaldur bent his head in his hands. “Raquel,” he said more softly, all annoyance draining out of him. “I know your feelings, and please trust that I agree- Lord Nighthawk had no right to talk of you as he did. But we are at war, and I cannot fight a battle here amongst my allies as well as one against my enemies. Please, try to understand,” he finished, straightening to look her in the eye. “If I could afford to alienate the Savage Landers, I would challenge him to a duel for insulting your honor in such a manner. But I am a commander, and my father’s loyal lieutenant. The consequences of my actions—they are not mine alone.”

Unhappily, she nodded.

“I understand. I think it’s wrong, and that you have more of a choice here than you think you do, but I’ll try not to be difficult. Now,” she rallied, gesturing brusquely at his wound. “Let’s see how things are going and try out that Savage Lander salve. Who knows,” she said teasingly, “If it kills you we might even have an excuse to execute the little rat.”

“A comforting thought,” said Kaldur dryly, settling back against the cushions on which he was propped up. Before Raquel could ask, he turned his left arm wrist-up and lifted it slightly so that she could begin the process of liberating his shoulder from its bandaging.  It was a ritual at this point, one they’d gone through every day for the last three weeks; she confiscated the old wrapping, examined the look and feel of the thick scabbing and the lingering stitches, then applied a touch of salve from her own kit. Today, though, she stopped before it was time to re-wrap the injury, reaching over to take the jar that contained Tricklieon’s salve.

“What do you think, your Grace?” she asked, uncorking the thing and running a finger just beneath the rim, testing the texture. “Do we trust the toad enough to give it a try?”

Kaldur frowned. He was torn - on the one hand, he had about as much trust in the newcomer as in Artemis’s ability to keep her mouth shut. On the other, he was keen to see his shoulder improve as early as possible. He’d already led from behind for too long. It was his duty to be on the frontlines with those he claimed to protect, not to hide in the relative safety of camp. And his father was expecting him to turn the war around, to live up to the family reputation in combat and in strategy.

“Perhaps I will read the King’s words before I make a decision,” he said, touching a hand to the vellum that now laid beside him on his cot. “I trust he will have some insight on the matter.”

“If you really need instructions from on high about whether or not you should slather potentially poisonous substances on your wounds, then by all means,” she replied sarcastically, setting the salve back down on the cot. As Kaldur unrolled the scroll, she busied herself with washing his bandages.

 _‘My Son,’_ it read, _‘I pray to the gods that this message finds you in good spirits and recovering health. Things in Raya are progressing well- the Northwestern front is but a few well-placed victories from being won entirely, and my generals and I are approaching a consensus on how we want to approach the annexation of Reginia. Your intelligence and observations have been invaluable toward this effort, and I am pleased to announce that many here at court speak highly of you. Though I know your motives for asking for your current command were not the most honest (for let us be truthful, son, I am aware that you chafe at the yoke of the court and its politics. I was much the same, in my youth, and I know that by the end of this war you will have grown to the point where the petty mannerisms and games no longer touch you), but I think that in doing so you have furthered our aspirations for you more than my plans ever could have._

_There is but one task that I wish you to attend to more thoroughly- the assassin, the cowardly Reginian who murdered General Maltus and who attempted to take your own life. Though his efforts will never be enough to keep us from Reginia, I have had intelligence that this battlefield is not the only one he has haunted- whoever he is, he has been a thorn in the side of the Savage Lands for almost three years now. Ending him and his interference in our affairs is now one of your top priorities._

_You are performing well, Kaldur’ahm. Your mother would be proud._

_Your King and Father_

Kaldur frowned deeply as he finished the letter. Lowering it to his lap, he stared down at the words, his father’s familiar script and its neat, military margins. Without a doubt the king had written the letter, yet there was something strange about it. Was something wrong, back home? What had led him to send this strange letter with an agent of the Savage Lands, an obvious spy?

“Something wrong, Your Excellency?” Raquel asked, draping his scrubbed bandages over a thin slat of wood to dry. “You look like you’ve eaten one of those poisonous Reginian toadstools.”

“Not eaten,” said Kaldur quietly. “Though perhaps seen.”

Raquel snorted.

“I’ll wrap the shoulder,” she said, clearly understanding his meaning – no salve.

With a nod, he held out his arm, attempting a glance down at the thick scab that still marked the area just above his left clavicle. It was not inflamed anymore, the way it had been for nearly a week after he first sustained the injury, but it still hurt (though perhaps not as much as his pride).

Fetching the fresh bandages from her bag, Raquel took a seat at his bedside and began the tedious process of wrapping the wound.

“It’s healing well,” she remarked lightly. “In a few more weeks it won’t be anything but a rugged reminder so you can show all the court ladies how brave you are,” she continued, pulling layer after layer of meticulously clean bandage over the wound. She wrapped tightly enough to keep dirt and other bothersome materials out, but loosely enough for the wound to breathe.

At his continued silence, she sighed. In a moment of unusual forwardness, even considering her brash demeanor and the fact that they had gotten quite close over the last three weeks, she cupped his cheek in one firm but gentle hand.

“I know that you were hoping the salve would make this all a thing of the past,” she said softly, patting the bandages sympathetically. “But maybe it’s a good thing that we can’t trust it or he who brought it- magic can’t end wars, Your Grace. Maybe it's for the best that it doesn’t heal the wounds either.”

Kaldur averted his eyes from hers – she was too close, perhaps as much figuratively as she was literally, and he worried she’d detect in his expression all his anxiety about what he had just read.

“Perhaps,” he echoed, distracted. “I doubt, though, that our guest will take kindly to our treatment of his gift.”

“Well,” she said slowly, bringing her palms to rest lightly on his shoulders. “I think I know what we could say to him about that,” she said lowly as she shifted to stand squarely before him, expression intent as she held his eyes.

At the questioning quirk of his brow, she continued, breaking into a mischievous grin. “We can tell him to take his horrible little salve and shove it right up his _as_ \--”

“Thank you for your assistance, Raquel,” Kaldur cut in loudly, giving her a disbelieving look even as he bit back a smile – how could she possibly have thought that a good plan? Shaking his head, he lowered his voice to a whisper and held her gaze to show how serious he was being. “Do not make yourself a target. I place too much value on your life to play games with it. I trust you will follow my lead in this regard.”

“I live to serve,” she said flippantly, rolling her eyes and releasing him as she turned to pack up her herbs and antiseptics. “I’ll be sure to send the assassin and the good lieutenant over to you- no doubt your father’s news requires you talk over your strategy with them.” As she turned to leave, she paused in the doorway.

“I value your life as well,” she said softly, looking back at him over her shoulder. “It’s not my place to command you, I know, but. Please, try to be safe. I wouldn’t all my hard work to come for nothing, and we already know you’re more of a target than I’ll ever be.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving Kaldur to mull over her words and his wounds.

He didn’t end up having much time to mull.

“Permission to enter?” Artemis asked as she lifted the tent flap aside to reveal herself and Conner, a scant five minutes after Raquel’s departure. “Your healer came by the mess to tell Conner and I that you’d want to see us.”

Kaldur opened his mouth to make some kind of flippant remark – “ _she was mistaken,”_ or “ _if you have not brought me food, you are not welcome in my tent,”_ but there was little point lying to them. They needed to make haste to discuss the matter now, while Tricklieon was busy setting up his own camp.

“Yes,” he said, sliding his feet over the side of his bed and rising, with some difficulty. “I wondered if the two of you might walk with me.”

_Away from this tent, where we are doubtlessly being monitored._

“You going to put a shirt on before we go out, or are we putting on a show to raise morale?” Artemis quipped flippantly, even as Conner was already moving to assist him.

Nodding his thanks as Conner helped him pull the shirt over his head and down his arms in a way that didn’t aggravate his wound, Kaldur huffed a breath. How he longed for the days when he did not require assistance for so menial a task!

Shrugging on the mail-lined coat that had to serve as his armor of the time being, Kaldur motioned for the two to follow him out of the tent and tucked into his sleeve the scroll he’d just received.

* * *

 

“What news have you from the King?” Conner asked quietly as they exited the camp, striking out towards the forest.

“I am not certain I can answer,” said Kaldur, walking in close step with the two of them so that he could keep his voice down. “I have reason to doubt the trustworthiness of the correspondence I received.”

Conner’s eyes widened.

“A forgery?” Artemis asked, unfazed, her eyes sifting through the trees as they walked, ever-vigilant.

“If so, an exceptional one,” said Kaldur, touching a hand to the scroll. “No, I believe it to be his hand, but the contents were...uncharacteristic. I must consider that my father held back the full truth of his circumstances, for whatever reason.”

“How do you know?” asked Conner, frowning. “What did he write?”

“Truly little,” said Kaldur. “Praise, mostly, of our progress thus far. An order to rout the individual who attacked us and wounded me.”

“That sounds perfectly normal for him,” said Artemis.  “He’s always doted on you. I’m almost surprised he hasn’t come to avenge your arm personally - he always did seem the type for vengeance.”

“I am not taking this matter lightly,” said Kaldur, halting their course - they were far enough from camp now, approaching too far. The woods were full of many things, few of them friendly to invading forces. In the shadow of the trees, he unrolled the scroll and held it before his friends, inviting them to look for themselves. “He used my proper name- Kaldur’ahm, with the Atlantean suffix- and spoke of my mother. I cannot help but think that trouble is brewing at home.”

“You think he’s in trouble because he mentioned your mother?” Conner questioned as he casually lifted a fallen tree and placed it to obscure their path- a deterrent to any spies that may have followed them.

Artemis rolled her eyes at the feat, used by now to Conner’s unusual strength. Motioning to the others to follow, she ascended up into a tree with broad, low-hanging branches- the better to observe if someone had followed them, and to get a view of the river bend without exposing themselves to any Reginian scouts poised along the cliffs, yet still a manageable climb for a man with one arm.

“My father does not speak of her often,” Kaldur replied as the three of them alighted on the last of the thick boughs- Artemis above, Kaldur in the middle, and Conner below, according to their weights. “I know almost nothing of her besides her name and the fact that she betrayed him- it is a painful topic for him to discuss. He does not use my full name in any but the most formal of circumstances. _‘Ahm_ , the Atlantean suffix, means ‘of the sea’. She named me thus when I was born, and he thought at first that it was meant to remind her of home. It wasn’t until she left that he deduced it was meant to be a reminder to him that his only child was a bastard born of enemy blood.”

“A cruel woman,” Conner murmured, looking out towards the cliffs. His eyesight was as unusually enhanced as his strength- only his complete lack of natural stealth and patience kept him from being assigned as a member of Artemis’s scouting squad, a fact she lamented daily.

“If the estranged husband is to believed,” Artemis replied, tone bitter. Though he disliked her questioning the veracity of his father’s story, Kaldur allowed the comment to pass. Her own mother had been long maligned by her father, and she had a low opinion in general of men who claimed to have been victimized by their wives.

“The topic at hand is not my mother, nor my father’s feelings towards her,” he reminded instead, peering down through the trees. He spotted no approaching figures- they were not followed. That or Tricklieon, or whomever of his escort that he sent to spy on them, was good at hiding.

“So, you think something has gone wrong in the capital. What do you want to do about it?” Conner questioned, charging through to the meat of the issue as usual.

“What can we do?” Artemis replied lightly. Her tone was- off, somehow. Looking up through the branches at her, Kaldur saw that her shoulders were tensed, and her eyes were fixed firmly in the distance, back towards the camp. “We have no proof, no real reason to suspect anything besides the fact that Kind Vandal’s messenger is a little shit and Kaldur’s dad was feeling a little sentimental about his estranged wife,” she continued, scorn building in her voice. “Besides,” she continued, close to outright scoffing, “It’s not as if we can just head back to check up on King David- We have a _mission_. ”

“You are correct that we cannot return home on a nigh baseless suspicion,” Kaldur said carefully. He was a little baffled, however, by the vehemence of her refusal. She was not usually one to advocate prudence in the face of suspicion. “But it would still be for the best if we kept an eye on our envoy- just in case Savage had ulterior motives for sending him here.”

“I’ll put one of mine on it,” she said tersely. “Let’s move on to the problem we can actually solve- how do you plan on luring our Fiend of the Mists out into the open? Or am I going on a bit of a sabbatical?” Her tone evened out as she focused on this new problem, and she sounded almost hopeful at the suggestion that she leave the rest of the force to hunt the Reginian sniper.

Kaldur was silent a moment, pondering the options. For a few days after he’d taken the arrow, there had been reports from other Rayan camps of a lone Reginian agent, a mysterious figure who wreaked havoc in the twilight hours by scaring off cart horses or setting fire to supply wagons, or even shooting down scouts who dared venture too far in advance of their regiments. But there had been no sign of the enemy archer in over a week, now, and there was no word of him (or her, Kaldur mentally acknowledged) in any of the reports from the canyon front either. It seemed their enemy had taken to lying low, or had otherwise disappeared altogether.  

Kaldur frowned. How was he to best someone he wasn’t even sure remained in the same part of the continent?

“From what intelligence we have gathered,” he began slowly, clearly thinking as he went, “I would presume that the Reginian will not allow himself to be drawn into the open, where he would lose the advantage of the forests. If he had any confidence in his ability to fight with honor, he would have faced General Maltus in the light of day, not sunk an arrow in her back while she addressed her troops.”

Conner nodded, frowning as he listened.

“We could smoke him out of the wood,” Artemis suggested. “Gods know we can’t burn the whole thing down when it’s always this wet, anyway.”

She flicked a branch heavy with dew, watching the water sprinkle down on her friends’ heads and smirking at the scowl Conner threw her way.

“No,” said Kaldur, shaking his head and giving Artemis a wry, unappreciative look. “He is clearly quite well-acquainted with the terrain. If we drive him from this place, he will only find another from which to torment us. And besides, there is no guarantee he is even nearby. Whatever action we take, it must be of enough significance to attract his attention, even if he is leagues away.”

“Let’s throw that slithering little viper from the Savage Lands a welcome feast,” said Artemis, eyes lighting up. “I guarantee he’ll have an arrow through his throat by nightfall.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Kaldur, looking up at her. “But that is an easy guarantee when you hold the bow.”

Artemis made a face at him, her hand instinctively moving to check the crossbow that always hung at her hip.  The three were silent a moment, the rustlings of the forest filling their ears, until finally Kaldur spoke again.

“We must advance the camp,” he said at last, voice heavy. “Make for the frontlines and make it clear that we intend to proceed as planned, that we do not fear his interference.”

Conner and Artemis exchanged a look.

“With all due respect, Commander,” Conner said, taking the initiative to speak for both of them, “you’re not in any shape to travel, much less lead a charge.”

“You can’t even wear full mail right now,” Artemis said flatly, cutting in. “If this is a plan to turn yourself into a Rayan pincushion, then it’s excellent, Your Grace, but otherwise we’ll need to keep thinking.”

Kaldur frowned deeply, eyes scanning the forest floor below. He couldn’t deny that they were right – his full armor placed too much weight on his still-healing shoulder; it would be another week or two before he could even attempt it, and even then, he would have to choose between holding his left blade and wearing mail – doing both would put too much strain on the ripped muscle. Still, he was tired of feeling useless, of sending letters from the rear camp to arrange the frontline troops into formations he ought to be personally leading. It felt inefficient, and worse, it felt cowardly.

“I know you’re in a hurry to make your father proud,” said Artemis, a hint of something odd in her voice – bitterness? – “but bait is useless without a trap.”  

“Perhaps if I were to fight with only one of my blades-” he began, but petered off at Conner’s incredulous stare.

“Respectfully, You Grace,” Conner said slowly, “That is a _terrible_ idea.”

“Yeah, Kaldur,” Artemis added, lips quirked in amusement as Kaldur’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment. “You’re awful at defending with one blade. But seriously,” she continued, mouth straightening into a firm line. “It’d be more strategically sound to wait a few more weeks until you’re combat effective to mobilize. The soldiers look to you to lead them- if you die, there’s no way that Conner or I would be able to muster them,” Artemis asserted, raising a hand to silence Kaldur when he opened his mouth to protest. “They _respect_ us now, sure. But we’re still _foreigners_ \- they’d never follow our orders if you weren’t there to sign off on them. We’d have to send back to Raya for a new commander, which would take weeks. And then filling them in on everything you know? The invasion would be set back by two months, at the very least.”

Kaldur glanced down at Conner, to see his take on Artemis’s assertions. To his complete lack of surprise, the younger man had been nodding along, agreeing with everything Artemis said.

It seemed he was outvoted- and as much as it rankled, Artemis was right. Without his wound healed, trying to advance the lines in order to draw out the Fiend was a folly at best, a suicide mission at worst.

With a sigh, he sagged against the tree, arms crossed. “You speak the truth,” he admitted reluctantly to them both. “What then would you have me do?”

“I think the fire idea sounds pretty good,” Conner piped up from below.

“And I would consider it, were it not for the fact that this damned place is too damp to light- fire would never take,” Kaldur retorted icily.

Suddenly, he was face with Artemis, who had swung upside down on her branch to glare at him reproachfully.

“Stop pouting,” she demanded. “We’ll figure out a way to draw out the Fiend,” she continued, “Maybe we could dress Tricklieon up in your armor, have him parade about in front of the camp for a while on your horse. That'd be sure to draw the assassin’s attention, and it’d solve the problem of our little spy,” she suggested with a wicked grin.

Below them, Conner guffawed hard enough that he slipped and fell out of the tree. Kaldur snorted, descending carefully to check on his fallen friend. “While a brilliant suggestion,” he replied to Artemis as they scaled down, “It would require that I risk the horse.”

* * *

 

By the time night had fallen and the trio had made their way back to the camp they were no closer to a sure plan to lure out the Fiend.

Kaldur sat at the center of the far table in the mess where the camp had congregated to eat, save the guards posted outside and Tricklieon’s small entourage, who had deemed the cramped tent with its smoky cookfires “practical” in a tone that made it clear they would be making their meals elsewhere.

But the snub from their new arrivals did not weigh on Kaldur’s mind, not like their overall predicament. His father had charged him with securing the mountain front of Reginia. And while to some degree he had come out here not out of zeal for the war cause but out of aversion to palace life, he had always intended to do the job properly. Raya needed to win this war, not just to maintain its reputation as a strong military presence and deter potential invaders, but to secure the unstable northern part of the continent. Reginia, it was rumored, had a ruler who was half-present at best, who denied the mantle of “king” and attempted to pass off the responsibility of leading onto his subjects while he went off on quests of personal interest. It was no wonder their army was ill-armored and cowardly, depending on guerilla tactics and the intervention of craven rogues like the Fiend.

Yes, Raya needed to send a clear message to the Reginians, to conquer decisively yet mercifully, so that when the smoke cleared they could see with unclouded eyes the power and virtue of their new king and rally behind him against the true enemy, Atlantis. Kaldur had memorized the stories his father used to tell him at bedtime, of how Atlantis’s false king stole the islands from their ancestors, banishing them to the mainland and destroying any trace of their once-great civilization. He dreamed of the day they landed on those shores once more to take back their birthright. But Reginia had to fall first, and the Savage Lands kept at bay.

And yet here he was, staring into his hundredth bowl of fish soup, one arm just shy of utterly useless at his side, pondering ways to root out a single backwater assassin.  A surge of irritation rushed through him and he slammed his flask down with more force than intended, startling a number of officers seated nearby.

“Apologies,” he told them, rising from his seat. “It seems appetite has taken its leave. You will excuse me.”

As he pushed out of the tent, the moon above – a faint sliver, wreathed in grey clouds – lit the whole camp in a weak, tired glow. It was as though even nature was mocking his inability to carry out his duty to his father, to his country.

His tent was just as he’d left it, which to some degree was surprising. He wouldn’t have been shocked if Tricklieon had given himself a tour of it when he’d gone to the woods, but everything seemed to be where he’d left it – bed made, armor polished and resting on a spare sleeping roll, letters from his father in their locked box, and the little jar of salve on top of that.

Kaldur hesitated a moment with the salve, running his fingertips over the smooth glass and activating the overhead witchlight to peer at the strange luminescence of the contents. _Nothing but poison,_ Artemis had said, and yet, what did exactly Tricklieon plan to do if he died? How did it play at all to the Savage Lands’ advantage to remove him from the picture? Only a mid-sized force remained in camp, a centurion or so. A good enough size for an exploratory force, but not nearly enough to overcome any other Rayan regiment, even if the soldiers consented to fight under a pompous bureaucrat like Tricklieon.

He took a seat on the edge of his bed, eyes still settled on the salve. Was it a risk? Yes, absolutely. But what were the alternatives? Wait until his arm had healed on its own and the summer was inevitably underway, their advantage lost? Leave it to the inexperienced officers on the frontlines to lead a charge, endangering the lives of their soldiers and Raya’s chance at victory?

Bringing the jar down level with his left wrist, he twisted the lid off. The smell was pungent, spiced and strong, certainly not anything like the ointments in Raquel’s kit.

Kaldur glanced at the front of the tent briefly. Artemis had left at twilight with her squad to scout out the area and confirm that no Reginian forces had discovered them yet; Conner was inevitably eating with the recruits. He had not seen Raquel in the mess, but she would not enter his tent unbidden, and he could easily order her to leave him in peace...

Setting the salve aside, Kaldur began the arduous task of removing his coat. A few bad moves left him grunting in pain, but soon enough he’d managed it, dropping the cumbersome thing onto the ground and moving on to take a fistful of the back of his tunic and pull. With some maneuvering, it soon joined the coat.

The air was cold and damp against his bare chest, but Kaldur’s shiver had little to do with the temperature. Holding the jar in his lap, he dipped two fingers into it and hesitated. It was not like him to do something reckless, but there was too much at stake – he was needed whole, not incapacitated. His father would understand. It was a necessary peril.

The first touch of the gel on his wound stung a little bit, but no worse than any of Raquel’s treatments had. As he slathered more of it on, the sensation began to move deeper, seeping down into his skin, and with it came a faint, burning pain. By the time he’d rubbed the whole of the little jar on, that sensation had intensified, taking root somewhere deep in the joint and spreading through his whole shoulder more and more rapidly, until he had to press his face down into his bedroll to muffle a hoarse scream of pain, his right hand clutching at his shoulder.

For a moment there was nothing but white fire lancing through his veins. Half-collapsed on his bed, Kaldur felt his body convulse with the sensation, swallowing his own agony, and damned his stupidity – of course it was poison! But it was far too late to take it back.

And then, all of a sudden, there was nothing. The pain vanished as abruptly as it had come, leaving him panting and breathless but certainly still alive.

Experimentally, he attempted to lift his left arm, but with a hiss of pain he discovered it was no different – the scab still taunted him, the wound still whole.

With a disappointed sigh, Kaldur lifted his legs up onto the bed beside him and pressed his face back down into his pillow. Suddenly he felt beyond spent. Too exhausted even to pull the blanket up over him, he shut his eyes and surrendered to the darkness.

* * *

 

The sun rose slowly over the treetops the next morning, casting the camp in watery light and touching lightly on the cliffs beyond. A breeze blew in off the river, stirring frost-hoary tents and setting the looming forest behind them alive with the sound of whispering leaves. The ever-present mist of the Reginian marshlands surrounded the camp like a great grey sea, making lonely islands of the tents.

Emerging from her own tent for her morning exercises, Artemis shivered as she observed the silent world around her- though it was morning, no birds sang. The forest seemed to press in on the encampment, mud sucking at her boots as she walked out towards the small clearing at camp center. The cliffs, daunting on the clearest and brightest of days, seemed to loom over the encampment. Artemis was reminded, faintly, of a hawk poised over its prey.

Scowling at her own foolishness, she shook herself, shaking out her limbs in preparation for her stretching routine. The cliffs did not _loom_ \- they were rocks, large and annoying but nothing more. She had begun to let their isolation get to her- she was unused to being stuck in one place for so long a time. Even living in the Rayan palace she had had freedom to roam about the large, bustling city so long as she hid her identity. These lonely, forsaken marshes were a no-man’s land by comparison.

Shrugging off her misgivings, Artemis focused on her body rather than her anxious mind. She was still sore from her mission the day prior, a long evening of scouting up and down along said “rocks” a few miles to the west of their encampment. She grunted unhappily as she stretched towards the slowly rising sun.

A few minutes in, Conner emerged from his tent behind her. Silently, she pretended not to notice as he attempted to sneak up on her – it was a daily routine of theirs, aimed at improving his lamentable stealth. So far he’d been unable to achieve the task, but he was improving.

She kept her body lax as he came up from behind, moving only a little to shift her feet into a better stance. The moment he touched her shoulder she grabbed him by the wrist with both hands and pulled him over her hip, flipping him none too gently into the mud.

“I hate you,” he growled as she grinned down at him. “I hate you. I hate this mud. I hate that, every day for the last _two weeks_ , I have let you fling me _into_ this mud,” he grumbled, attempting to swipe his hair out of his eyes and succeeding only in smearing mud on his forehead, to which the hair then stuck. “Have I mentioned that I hate you?”

“Once or twice,” she replied glibly, reaching to help pull him out of the muck. With a grunt of effort she managed to pull him to his feet. Upon releasing him she groaned, pain shooting down her arm.

Conner, who by this point was attempting to wipe the mud from his backside, threw her a questioning glance.

“Oh, shut it,” she griped as she stretched one arm across her chest, using the other to pull it tight. “Not all of us can just scale cliffsides all day and come out of it feeling fresh as a rose, you little _monkey_.”

“You swore you’d never speak of that,” Conner hissed, settling into his stance across from her and copying her movements. Though Artemis sincerely doubted he was actually sore from yesterday (or ever, for that matter), it _was_ nice to have a stretching partner.

“I swear a lot of things,” she scoffed, trading arms. “I tend to keep to very few of them, especially if they require me to resist regaling my poor, cold scouts with tales of the big, strong Knight Conner of Pequenia and his utter terror in the face of small, swinging mammals.”

Ignoring his grumbles- ‘ _small mammals that swing from rafters to attack your face, and that **bite** ’_\- she began to work through a series of basic poses that were more focused on maintaining flexibility and balance than on stretching her sore muscles. Conner copied along, and the two continued uninterrupted for another twenty minutes of peaceful silence.

“Do you think Kaldur is going to be okay?” Conner questioned suddenly as they descended into the mud for a bridge stretch, bracing themselves on hands and feet while arching their spines towards the sky.

“He’ll be fine,” she said automatically, though in the back of her mind she was worried for Kaldur, too. But the last thing Kaldur needed was for anyone to doubt his leadership, especially if they were going to stay here a few more weeks like she hoped. As much as she despised the marshlands, the downtime that came as a result of being stuck in a ten mile radius of camp would give her time resolve her recent dilemma.

“Prince Kaldur is in charge for a lot of reasons,” she continued to Conner, limbs straining to hold the pose. “A lot of them have to do with him being the high-strung progeny of King-Stick-Up-His-Bum, but one of the real ones is that he knows how to be patient.”

“He seems pretty ready to go to me,” Conner said doubtfully as they clambered to their feet. “I’m actually kind of worried that he’s going to do something. Well. Dumb.”

“Kaldur’s a lot of things,” she replied confidently. “But dumb isn’t one of them.”

* * *

 

From a distance, pale green eyes watched the two soldiers as strong fingers curled and uncurled around the hilts of twin swords. It was rare to see the two of them interacting so freely – it would be a shame to disrupt such a moment...but patience, it seemed, was generally overrated. Ducking behind the nearby tents, the watcher began the slow, careful process of approaching undetected. Such a task had proven impossible for a man of Conner’s bulk and lack of grace, but with luck, and with the distraction of conversation, perhaps...

At last, still undetected and close enough to see the stitching of Artemis’s tunic and the scuffs on Conner’s favorite boots, the newcomer ripped both blades from their sheaths and lunged toward the assassin with a shout.

* * *

 

Artemis bent at the waist, Conner mirroring her, and fixed her eyes on the ground before her as she stretched. She continued, “I mean, he can be a little impulsive but--”

“ARRRAGH!”

“What the fuc--” Artemis exclaimed as she turned, flipping her attacker over her shoulder. He landed gracefully opposite of her, two swords raised against herself and Conner.

Kaldur grinned as he settled into a fighting stance, a manic look in his eye.

“What. In all the gods’ names. Do you think you’re _doing_ ,” Artemis demanded tersely, sliding a knife from its place at her hip to defend herself.

“Attack me,” he commanded, showing no sign of discomfort or of fear (which, all in all, made him look decidedly un-Kaldurlike). “I order it. Attack me!”

Conner glanced at her, uncertain. Retrieving her short sword from her hip, she tossed it to him. They really did need to work on his bad habit of leaving his tent unarmed, but that would have to wait until after they restrained their apparently _insane_ commander and got Raquel to put a couple calming potions in him.

“We’re not going to attack you, Kaldur,” she said slowly as Conner slid into a defensive stance. “You’re going to ruin all of Raquel’s hard work if you keep prancing around like an idiot- whatever _bit_ you on the **_ass_** , we can _talk_ about it.”

No one had ever claimed Artemis of the Shadowlands would make a good diplomat.

“Raquel’s work is done,” Kaldur replied, stepping forward to take a swing at Artemis that she easily dodged. “I gave you an order, soldier, now show me your steel.”

“Commander,” Conner said uncertainly, locking eyes with Artemis over Kaldur’s shoulder in an attempt to coordinate an approach. “Are you feeling alright? Are you...have you eaten something?”

Kaldur turned to face his subordinate, leveling one blade toward him, the other still outstretched toward Artemis.

“I am more than all right,” he said, voice laden with some powerful feeling – excitement? “I am better than I have been in too long a while. Now attack me!”

“Raquel’s work is done,” Artemis murmured to herself, still ignoring his order. What about that phrase set the hairs on the back of her neck on end?

Realization dawned.

“Oh, you fucking ** _idiot_** ,” she seethed. “Conner?”

“Yes?” he answered, sword still at the ready.

“Did you hear our Commander give us a direct order to attack him?” She questioned, palming a throwing knife from her sleeve.

Conner turned to her, baffled. “Um,” he hesitated. “Yes?”

Artemis nodded slowly, eyes locked with Kaldur’s. “That’s good. Listen, you’re going to ignore that order, okay?”

Conner nodded.

“And _I_ -,” she grit between clenched teeth, “- Am going to _beat_ his dumb ass into the ground.”

With that she leapt at Kaldur, ducking beneath his initial block to swipe at his chest with her dagger.

Eyes flashing excitedly as Artemis charged him, Kaldur fell a half a step back, her dagger just grazing the surface of his leather chestpiece. Before she could bring it back for another swipe, his left sword flashed up, forcing her to dance nimbly away as it sliced into the space she’d occupied only a split second before. He had fought his friend a good many times, and they both knew who had the advantage where – she would best him at great distance and at no distance at all, but if he could keep her at arm’s reach, his height, strength and weapon of choice would give him the edge.

As she ducked his next swing and darted forward once more, he angled his right blade into the trajectory of her knife, blocking the blow and weathering the sparks that flew as the blades collided.

Twisting away, Artemis fell back, ducking and rolling to stay out of Kaldur’s reach while she searched for an opening. Feinting to the left, she tried to roll into his instep and was blocked by a lightning quick swipe that caught the fluttering edge of her tunic.

Cursing, Artemis fell back once more before assaulting forward again, this time throwing the small knife towards his face as a distraction. As he ducked and thrust his swords up to block the projectile she rolled through his legs, then stood and stepped into his stance to keep him unbalanced. Quickly, she grabbed him by one arm, trying to get in close behind him to press her dagger to his throat.

Instead he whipped around, using his superior strength to throw her off of him. As he turned, he stomped down hard on her instep to break her stance. Stumbling backwards, she barely managed to duck yet another crossing slash of his swords. Panting heavily and swearing beneath her breath, she switched tactics.

Instead of going in for a direct shot at his throat and midsection like she did with targets, she focused on disarming him. She danced out of his reach, staying just far enough away for him to get a few close swipes. Before he knew it she was flicking knives at his arms, at his hands. The fool had neglected armor and had to dodge or risk getting his hands sliced open.

But instead of backing off, Kaldur just doubled down, blades flicking through the air to intercept the first two knives, which fell to the swampy ground with twin _clangs_. The next shot he missed, and it hissed past, taking a piece of his sleeve with it and narrowly avoiding taking a piece of his forearm, too. He struck the fourth from the air and had just begun to advance on Artemis when a horrified, strangled sound from the camp side of their battleground drew both their attentions.

“Your G – Comm – you royal _imbecile!”_ Raquel spat, looking and sounding absolutely livid. “What do you think you’re doing with that arm?!”

As she stormed toward them, her gaze shot to Artemis, whose fifth knife had frozen between her fingers, it seemed.

“And you,” Raquel hissed. “What do you think you’re doing, engaging him?!”

Artemis smirked at Kaldur, straightening from her stance into a placating pose. _Oh, this is going to be fun,_ she thought to herself. Aloud, she said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s his _arm_ you should be worried about, Raquel.”

Raquel’s eyes snapped from Kaldur to Artemis. “And what,” she hissed, “Is that supposed to mean?” she questioned, hands lowering threateningly to her medical kit.

Conner, who at this point had been standing to the side of the action looking bemused for quite some time now, seemed to decide that this was the signal to settle in for a bit of entertainment and sat down on a near-by stump.

Upon considering Raquel’s livid expression and Kaldur’s now-somewhat-guilty one, Artemis elected to join him.

“There is no need for concern,” said Kaldur, sounding a hair calmer, though he’d yet to lower either of his swords, almost as though he sensed he’d now need them to defend against a new opponent.

“Is that so?” Raquel asked, looking supremely skeptical as she advanced on her commander.

“Our mistrust in the emissary’s potion was unfounded, it seems,” said Kaldur. As if to demonstrate, he took a quick step to the side and executed a number of swift, powerful thrusts of his double blades. If his left shoulder hindered him at all, it didn’t show. “I feel as strong as I was when we set out, perhaps stronger.”

“Fun fact about wasting diseases and infections,” Raquel snapped, getting dangerously close to Kaldur, to the point where he was forced to back up against a nearby tent. “They don’t exactly show up and shout ‘Here I am!’ at passing over-worked healers until they’re green, oozing, and about to result in an amputation.” From Raquel’s tone, it sounded to Artemis like the irate woman wouldn’t exactly mind relieving Kaldur of one of his limbs at the moment.

“Should we stop them?” Conner asked quietly, leaning closer to Artemis. “I don’t really think Healer Ervin is supposed to be menacing the Commander in public.”

Artemis snorted. “Hell no,” she whispered back. “This is the best entertainment I’ve had since you fell off that overhang into the swamp last week. And His Grace deserves to suffer a bit, the _idiot_. Besides,” she assured, aware that Conner’s concerns were warranted, especially because the kid’s own command presence partially hinged on Kaldur’s, “It’s too early for any of these lazy slugs to be up and about, anyways.”

“Truly, the way you engage with your subordinates is...unorthodox,” a new voice said, and by the condescension dripping from every syllable, no one was surprised to see Tricklieon watching them from a safe distance with two of his guards – the ground where he stood was ever so slightly drier.  But while Raquel, Artemis and Conner had to school the disgust from their faces (with varying degrees of success – Artemis managed, Conner failed, and Raquel barely attempted it), Kaldur immediately straightened out, sheathed his blades, and gave a deferential bow of his head to the newcomer.

“Lord Nighthawk,” he greeted. “I would not have expected your presence here at such an hour.”

“Well, when I realized that further sleep would not be an option, I thought I would investigate the commotion,” the emissary replied. “You seem to have slept well, at least, Your Grace.”

“Indeed I have,” said Kaldur. “With a great debt of gratitude to you and your miraculous salve.”

Tricklieon’s lips curled into a satisfied smile as his eyes roved over Kaldur’s arm.

“I’m ever so glad it could be of use to you,” he said. “And that you chose to trust your father’s word over the bitter suspicions of those who couldn’t heal you properly to begin with.”

At her commander’s side, Raquel stiffened, clearly devoting her full energy to keeping her mouth shut. Kaldur touched her arm gently, but said nothing about the obvious attack on her skill, drawing raised eyebrows from both Artemis and Conner.

“Yes, well, you have my sincerest thanks,” said Kaldur, bowing his head once again. “And I am certain you will be glad to hear, then, that we shall leave the marsh as soon as possible. Two days ought to be sufficient – we will gather supplies, take stock of the equipment and our own readiness, and make for the frontlines. If we set a rigorous pace we ought to reach the advance guard within a week, perhaps less.”

“Kaldur, I’m not sure that – “ Artemis began, but he held up his left hand, silencing her.

“We have delayed long enough,” he said, tone firm. “We depart in two days. Make your preparations. Artemis, Conner, you will alert the troops and meet me in my tent immediately after to discuss our route through the mountains. You are all dismissed.”

Internally seething but unwilling to show insubordination in front of Tricklieon, Artemis turned on her heel and strode towards the tent that housed her squad.

Conner, with a disgruntled glare at Tricklieon (he didn’t take kindly to the insult towards Healer Ervin, who had saved many of his soldiers from loss of life and limb in the little combat they’d already seen), headed towards the officer’s tent. He’d wake the lieutenants and give them the orders to wake their platoons. They would need an early start if they were going to be able to prepare on Kaldur’s short timeline.

Raquel turned to Kaldur. “May I be dismissed to begin preparations, Your Grace?” she said icily. She fisted one hand at her side, the other clutched white-knuckled at her medical kit. Internally, she was thanking every god she knew for her dark skin- any lighter, and that little snake Tricklieon would be able to see the embarrassment on her face as clear as a Rayan morning.

Looking somewhat ashamed ( _as he should be_ , Raquel though viciously), Kaldur nodded his approval. As she stormed off to her tent, she heard Tricklieon’s oily voice begin, “Now, about your officer’s meeting- You won’t mind if I sit in, will you? It’s just that I think your people should, ah, ‘get to know me’ if I’m to be of use as an advisor during the campaign.”

* * *

 

“The valley would prove easiest for the horses and carts to traverse,” Kaldur remarked as he and Conner stood on a high ridge, looking out over the next leg of their journey. The regiment had pressed hard for the last two days, making its way out of the swamp and up into the foothills of the mountains, where the rugged terrain had begun to slow them. Currently, they were taking a midday respite to water the horses, and to allow the troops to rest and eat.  “But crossing it will leave us quite vulnerable to attack, particularly from a ranged arsenal.”

“Reginians seem to like those,” Conner muttered in agreement.  They had taken some minor arrow fire from a small band of rogues the night before, though it was unclear if it had been some sort of organized resistance or if a few bandits had simply picked the wrong encampment to harass. None of their number had put up enough of a fight even to consider that the Fiend had been among them, and Kaldur was beginning to get frustrated. If making for the frontlines wasn’t enough to draw the assassin’s attention, he’d have to try something more audacious, and all his current ideas involved too much risk to the regiment...

“Artemis may have a better idea of what lies in store for us when she returns,” said Kaldur, turning away. “The valley is our swiftest route to the towns surrounding the Reginian capital, the mountains the safest. But there is no use debating the matter until we have further information. Let us rejoin the others – you must be hungry, my friend.”

“After helping haul that pompous prick’s cargo all day? I could eat a horse. Maybe I’ll eat one of his. Not like they did much good today anyways,” Conner grumbled. One of Tricklieon’s horses had sprained an ankle earlier in the day. Conner had ended up helping the other horse to drag the wagon up to the plateau where they’d broken for lunch. It was sweaty and humiliating work, and if Conner had not already disliked the advisor...well, the experience of hauling his luxuries for ten miles certainly had not improved his sour disposition towards the man.

“Save me the haunch and I’ll make it look like an accident,” piped a voice from behind.

Whirling, the two men were unsurprised to see Artemis emerge from the shadow of a boulder.

“Welcome back,” Kaldur greeted warmly as he offered her his canteen. “What news have you?”

Nodding her thanks, she took a few long swallows of the water.

“The good kind, for once,” she replied when she finished, handing him back the empty vessel. “I found a cave system that goes straight through the mountains. It leads right out to a forest- if it’s anything like the marshlands around here, it’ll still be slower going than following the valley straight through to the Reginian capitol, but it’s a lot quicker than trekking through the mountains. We’re less likely to be whittled down to nothing by snipers in the forest than if we stay out in the open, so my recommendation is that we go for it.”

“Excellent,” said Kaldur, heartened by the news. He had been loath to choose between delaying their arrival and putting his soldiers at risk – the tunnel route would be an opportune compromise. “How long do you estimate it would take us to reach its entrance, and to traverse it?”

“At this current pace, you’ll reach it a little before nightfall,” said Artemis, eyeing Conner’s canteen – after a moment, he rolled his eyes and passed it over. She continued her report between gulps: “We could set up camp in the mouth of the caves, plenty of space for it there, plus cover from the rocks. As for traversing it...well, barring any further setbacks from our accompanying leeches, we should be able to make it through in a day. There are some places that will be a tight fit for the wagons, but with a little extra muscle from the troops, they should squeeze through.”

“Good,” Kaldur nodded. “Then let us proceed. We will make an early camp tonight, to rest for the push tomorrow.”

“As you command, Commander,” responded Artemis, finishing off the last of Conner’s water and passing it back. “Now what was that about lunch?”

* * *

 

“That man’s horse is almost as ill-tempered as he is,” Raquel commented to Kaldur as she dropped down to join himself, Conner, and Artemis at their fire. The journey to the caves from the ridge had been mercifully uneventful, though Conner had grumbled at having to continue to assist Tricklieon’s wagon. Thankfully, the emissary was settled off with his own compatriots for the night, having declared his inability to eat the “fish sludge” the camp cook had concocted for the night.

“We are grateful that you have experience with healing animals,” Kaldur commented as Artemis passed the woman a trencher of the thick stew.

“I certainly am,” Conner commented, stretching out near the fire. “Another day of that and I was going to ‘accidentally’ break the whole damn wagon. Let the little snot live like the rest of us.”

“Please,” Artemis said, “We’d all just end up having to carry bit of his stuff with us on our own horses and wagons. Now, if you were to set the wagon on _fire_ \--“

The two continued in their banter over the best possible way of destroying Tricklieon’s property while Raquel and Kaldur tucked into their food, listening and eating in companionable silence.

Soon enough the raucous pair went off to the cook’s table for seconds- Conner ate more than the average soldier on any given day, and both he and Artemis had done more physical exertion that Raquel and Kaldur had, Artemis pushing her scouts hard and fast through and back in the caves, and Conner pulling Tricklieon’s heavy wagon.

As their good natured bickering faded, Raquel turned to Kaldur.

“Let me have a look at that arm of yours,” she said firmly. “I need to check it for wasting disease and the like.”

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Kaldur complied. He and Raquel freed him of his mail and then, after Kaldur had tugged his shirt off and over his head, she examined him in the firelight.

“It looks good,” she admitted grudgingly, prodding at the scar tissue gently.

“It feels it,” said Kaldur, watching her fingertips brush over the thick white line without flinching. The cool night air was pleasant against his bare skin after their long day, though he knew that soon he’d want for his cloak again.

Hesitating, Kaldur diverted his eyes to the fire for a moment, then lifted them back to Raquel.

“I am...sorry that I did not consult you before using the salve, Raquel,” he said quietly. “And sorrier still that I did not rebuke Lord Nighthawk’s slight. I have never been fond of the political games my father would have me play, but...I wish you to know how much I value you as a member of my corps, and as a friend. I am grateful for all you have done for me.”

She smiled gently up at him, laying her warm palm against the scar. “I hate to say it, but I’m sort of grateful for this wound,” she said softly. “Without it, I don’t think we ever would have gotten to know one another. You’d just be another pompous officer to me, and I’d just be a medic to you,” she continued. Her eyes were fixed on Kaldur’s chest, but seemed far off and distant. She didn’t remove her hand.

Kaldur froze, blinking uncertainly when her hand remained on his person. His eyes flicked to it, then briefly to her face, then quickly back to the fire.  He knew his heart had begun to beat slightly faster, and given that her hand was pressed to his bare skin not three inches away, she no doubt knew it, though perhaps she didn’t know the reason why.

“Healer Ervin,” Kaldur began, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “I...I must ask that you...”

“Hmm?” She looked up from his chest, shaken out of whatever trance she’d been caught in.

She _still_ made no move to remove her hand.

“Healer Ervin,” he repeated, deciding to grasp the nettle and confront the somewhat…awkward way that Raquel may have taken his words. “I value you very highly as a _friend_ , but I am afraid that is the, uh--” he had to pause at her questioning brow. He took a moment to gather his courage, and tentatively removed her hand from his chest, holding it loosely. “Friendship is as far as my feelings extend,” he charged on valiantly. The brow rose higher, the arch of it raising into Raquel’s hairline. “I do not reciprocate any more, well, _romantic_ feelings you may bear towards me,” he finished lamely. “I am sorry.”

“Any what now?” she questioned flatly, her other brow shooting up to join its sister.

“I’m aware now that you may have misinterpreted my statement as a romantic declaration,” he clarified awkwardly. “It was not one. My apologies.”

She froze, and he braced himself for the results of his rejection.

She laughed, first softly and then with rising volume and vigor until she was doubled over, clutching her sides with one hand and half-heartedly muffling the sound with the other.

Kaldur sat back.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he blurted as she continued to dissolve into gales of laughter.

“You, you really, you actually think I--” she managed to get out in-between chuckles. “Oh, wow, you think I mean it like, like _that_?” she managed to exclaim, gasping between heaving breaths.

“Oh, Your Grace, you’re killing me!”

Ears burning in embarrassment (though he could not place **_why_** , considering her response was more or less what he’d wanted) Kaldur defended, “I am so glad that you appear to be taking the news so well,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest protectively.

She paused in her laughter to fix him with a stare. “Don’t pout,” she said seriously in a disturbing mirror of Artemis, before catching his affronted glare and breaking down into fits of giggles again.

When her laugher at last subsided, she sat up with a sigh. “That was the funniest thing I’ve heard in years,” she said contently, massaging at her no-doubt aching sides and fixing Kaldur with a gentle if teasing smile. “ _My apologies_ ,” she mocked, “But as pretty and as _exactly_ my type you’d be under different circumstances, your current position just makes any sort of romantic feelings towards you a non-issue, Your Grace.”

“My position as a bastard prince hasn’t exactly kept many uninterested before,” Kaldur replied amusedly.

“Oh, it’s not your status that’s the problem,” she replied, waving the comment off flippantly. “Let’s just chalk it up to insurmountable ideological differences and call it a night, okay?”

“As you wish,” Kaldur said, unsure what that last comment was supposed to mean, but generally thankful that the encounter had gone as smoothly as it had. He let out a relieved sigh, reaching down to retrieve his tunic from where it lay draped on the log beside him, and began the process of redressing himself.

“Don’t think I missed that ‘thank the gods’ nonsense back there, though,” said Raquel. She picked up Kaldur’s mail shirt from the ground and passed it over with a small grunt of effort, giving him a careful look. “Were you expecting I’d fly into a spurned rage and claw your wound back open with my bare hands? Or are you being in some other way ridiculous?”

“I – “ Kaldur began, taking the mail shirt as an opportunity to evade the topic for one second as he maneuvered it over his head. “Nothing like that, no.”

“Then...?” Raquel prompted.

“The company of women does not interest me the way most assume it must,” said Kaldur delicately. He fixed his eyes on refastening his belt over his mail, then reached for his cloak, only to find it missing – doubtlessly, Artemis had absconded with it for her own warmth when she’d gone off to get seconds.

“Oh,” said Raquel, looking thoughtful, though not at all surprised. “I might’ve guessed, I suppose.”

“It is not something I tend to shout to the heavens,” said Kaldur wryly. “So I would be grateful if you did likewise. Artemis’s continuing presence here depends on our fathers’...assumptions, and as I would be loath to lose her company, not to mention her steel, I do my best not to contradict them.”

“And in turn, I do my best to keep my _actual_ love life both non-committal and unnoticed,” Artemis commented as she reappeared, wrapped in Kaldur’s cloak and already a third of the way through her second trencher of stew. “Though believe me, the lucky lads and lasses I romance _definitely_ notice,” she said smugly as she settled back in by the fire.

“And let me guess,” Raquel teased as Conner came up to the fire, settling in between Kaldur and Artemis. “Young Lieutenant Conner here is Kaldur’s _real_ lover?”

Conner sputtered into his stew, sloshing some of the steaming liquid onto his tunic in affronted surprise. “I like _girls_ ,” he insisted earnestly as he stripped the shirt from his chest, wadding it up in apparent disregard for the cold.

“And I’m sure they like you too, honey,” Raquel reassured with an exaggeratedly appreciative look at Conner’s bare chest. She and Artemis burst into laughter as the younger man set to sputtering and turning an interesting shade of red.

Smiling softly, Kaldur silently offered thanks to the gods for good companions, and even grudgingly admitted that Raquel was right- he did owe something of a debt to the Fiend of the Mists. If nothing else, the coward had done one good deed- he had, by his arrow, brought Raquel to them as a trusted friend.

* * *

 

The next day saw Kaldur in a slightly less pleasant mood.

“Keep the mares calm, soldier!” he ordered sternly, shouting from behind the wagon as he and a few others attempted to muscle it out from the narrow passage in which it had gotten stuck.  He could hear sounds of distress from the horses who were drawing it, and didn’t fancy having them bolt once they’d gotten the damn thing through, particularly not in such cramped quarters. They didn’t need anyone getting trampled down here in the dark.

Finally, with a coordinated heave, the four of them managed to get the wheels through and the wagon lurched forward, further into the caves. Falling back, Kaldur sighed, glancing up at the few rays of light slanting through holes higher up in the passage. For the most part, the path had been straightforward, with Artemis leading them through the places easiest for a group with carts and horses to traverse. But this was the third time they’d had to maneuver through an unavoidably tight spot, and he was beginning to worry that they wouldn’t get through by nightfall.

“Increase pace,” he ordered, moving swiftly back to the head of the pack, where some of the officers were leading the way (behind Artemis’s scouting troupe, whose members would reappear sporadically to offer guidance). The command was repeated through the ranks, and as one, the garrison began to press forward more insistently.

“How do you fare, Lord Nighthawk?” Kaldur asked the emissary, who had begun to fall behind the first line of troops. “We will rest for lunch soon. I know you must be unaccustomed to travelling like this.”

Mostly, he didn’t want to hear him complaining later.

“I’m faring about as well as any air-loving man fares after traveling countless miles in a cramped, damp cave system with a caravan of horses and stinking commonfolk,” the man groused, but kept his voice low. “I hope you have the good sense, Commander, to pick the next open area as our resting spot. And, please, if we ever must do this again,” he drawled, “Order your soldiers to at least bathe first, hmm?”

“I will keep it under advisement,” Kaldur responded politely. Inside, the good will he’d borne the man not four days ago for the sake of the salve he brought with him had begun to wear thin. Gratitude only survived so many snide remarks, insinuations,  and backhanded compliments, after all.

“Commander!” a soldier called. “Her Lady Artemis is requesting your presence at the front!”

Glad for the excuse, Kaldur led his horse forward, gratified when soldiers parted to the sides automatically to let him pass. It was comforting to see that their respect for his command had not altogether deteriorated during his prolonged weeks of injury.

“What do you require?” He questioned when he caught up to Artemis.

“Nothing at all,” she replied breezily. “I merely wished to save my beloved betrothed from the awful fate of the viper’s tongue.”

Conner, and several of the more savvy soldiers following behind them, snorted in laughter.

“Best not make our disdain for the good advisor too obvious, dearest,” Kaldur whispered. “Lest the men take it as permission to leave him tied and gagged in the caves behind us when I am not watching.”

“The silence would be a blessing,” Artemis replied wistfully. “But I suppose letting your soldiers kill my countryman and start a war with the Savage Lands would put rather the damper on our marriage,” she said just loudly enough that a few of the soldiers behind them were set to snickering.

* * *

 

After about another hour of travel, they at last reached a large, open cave. Kaldur gave the order to rest, and began rummaging in his saddle bag for the cold bread and cheese that would serve as lunch before he tied off his horse with a bag of oats near the water barrels set aside for the animals.

“Are we making the time you had anticipated?” he asked Artemis as he dropped down onto the cave floor beside her, making a backrest of his pack by reclining against it.

“Better than it,” Artemis told him, consulting the small, crude map of the cave system she’d carved into a strip of leather with her knife. “I don’t doubt that we’ll be out under the stars before there are stars to see. In fact, there’s an exit not fifteen minutes’ walk further in, but I don’t think the wagons will fit through it – the surest one is another two or three hours along. But it’s perfect for a camp before we make a final push to the front tomorrow.”

“Good,” Kaldur nodded. “And your squad, are they all present, or are some still ahead?”

“I have two still further in, and two further back,” said Artemis. “Ensuring the way is still clear of obstacles and enemies before and behind us, respectively.”

“What’s he doing?” Conner asked abruptly, standing over them as he stared over at Tricklieon’s entourage.

“Who cares?” Artemis asked flatly, casting an uninterested glance over before looking back to her lunch.

Kaldur turned his head slightly, trying to avoid the appearance of staring. The emissary was standing with a hand against the cave wall some twenty feet away, muttering something beneath his breath. It would have been unremarkable, but for the fact that he had willingly come into contact with nature, something they’d yet to see him do.

Before Kaldur could give it further thought, though, there came a distant noise from further into the tunnel – a human noise, perhaps a shout.

Immediately, he rose to his feet, staring into the dim passage.

“One of yours?” he asked Artemis, who had similarly risen.

“Could be,” she said, stepping over to retrieve a torch from where it had been wedged into an outcropping. “I’ll go investigate.”

“Not alone,” Kaldur said immediately. “I will accompany you. Healer Ervin – you will come too, in case some harm has come to the good soldier.”

For once, Artemis didn’t argue, and with Conner (who wasn’t about to be left behind) on their heels, they headed toward the noise, their steps quick but not running.

“Lieutenant Kafepat,” said Kaldur, making eye contact with one of the more experienced officers as they passed. “We will return shortly. Until then, you have command of the camp. Keep everyone together, and have them ready to move out in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” the man nodded, throwing a salute.

“Lets go see if Lewis twisted his ankle again,” Raquel sighed, stuffing her unfinished meal into her bag as she followed Kaldur and the rest into the narrow tunnel.

Walking briskly, Artemis took the opportunity away from the rest of the force to ask a question that had been weighing on her mind since last night.

“Healer Raquel?”

“Yes?” the woman replied, picking her way around a precariously sharp looking rock.

“It seems unfair to me that you know all of our tastes, and we’ve yet to learn yours,” Artemis remarked. She was more bored than curious, to be honest. Walking through the caves all day had gone more quickly than she had thought it would, but it had still been slow going and monotonous.

“Try to make a pass are you?” Raquel joked. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, my Lady, but I’m afraid I’ve only a taste for men.”

“My heart will never heal from the slight,” Artemis said dramatically, pausing to swoon into Conner’s startled arms.

“And neither will your soldier at this rate, if he is indeed injured,” Kaldur said mildly.

A few more minutes of brisk walking past with no event, and no injured scout in sight.

“I’m beginning to wonder if we were just hearing things,” Artemis said. “The shout didn’t sound nearly this far awa- what was that?” she snapped, upon hearing a soft groaning noise above.

There was a loud CRACK, and bits of dust and rock began to rain down on their heads.

“Artemis,” Kaldur snapped, a sense of foreboding washing over him. “Lead us to the exit you mentioned, now.”

The rumbling continued as they sprinted towards the exit, Artemis leading and Conner flanking behind. A moment later, rubble began to crumble in from above them, and loud crashes resounded from behind and ahead in the tunnels.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck-_ ” Artemis exclaimed as the crashes grew closer, seeming to close in on the group from either side. “Where the fuck is that fucking exi- Here, turn off _here_!”

She ducked down into a narrow side passage, the others following quickly. A thrill of fear ran up Kaldur’s spine as the crashing grew closer, louder. It sounded as if the whole of the mountain was determined to come down on them, to destroy the invaders that sought to pass through it unscathed.

After a few more brief seconds of terror, a soft light appeared- the exit to the caves was just up ahead. Around them, though, the rocks had begun to fall in earnest, slamming into the ground all around them as they sprinted forward.

The team reached the exit not a moment too soon- as soon as Conner came barreling out, the whole tunnel filled with rubble at their backs. The group ran a few hundred feet further for safety and then collapsed, panting.

“We must regroup,” Kaldur said swiftly, gasping for breath but too full of adrenaline even to contemplate staying down. “The troops must be warned that there has been a cave-in, that the way forward is – “

“ – they heard it,” said Artemis, forcing herself onto her knees. “If we’re lucky, only this portion of the tunnel came down. If we’re not, it’s caused a chain reaction and they’re all being crushed to death as we speak.”

“Do not even – “ Kaldur began, but he was cut off as an arrow whistled out of the sky and buried itself in the ground beside his left hand.

“Fall back!” he ordered, jumping to his feet and rushing forward to defend Raquel, who wore only light mail, like what he had been wearing the night he was struck, nothing that could stop an arrowhead. But even as Artemis and Conner obeyed, rushing for the relatively safety of the rock overhang from which they’d come, Raquel herself rushed forward, toward the edge of the trees from which the arrow had come. “Fall _back!”_

A shrill singing sound announced the arrival of another arrow; this one clipped Kaldur’s pauldron.

“Healer Ervin!” he shouted, drawing both blades as he watched her run in entirely the wrong direction. “Raquel! Fall back, or you will be killed!”

At the sound of his voice, she turned, but to his surprise and horror, stopped dead in her tracks, placing her back to their attacker. More chilling still was the expression on her face – her mouth was pressed into a tight line, hands still at her sides, her countenance speaking more of bitterness and regret than of fear.

“Fall back yourself, Prince of Raya,” she said, her voice quiet.

Kaldur took a quick step to the side, narrowly avoiding one arrow, then another, the second following the first in rapid succession. Gritting his teeth, he began to step backwards toward the collapsed cave.

“Run,” Raquel urged him, giving him a look of confusion and disgust. “Run, you stupid bastard!”

As another arrow followed him down the hill, Kaldur began to piece together something odd – though Raquel had made herself an obvious target, immobile and fully exposed, the enemy was clearly aiming for him alone. Furthermore, he recognized the fletching on the arrows currently raining down on them – red as blood, with jet black arrowheads. The Fiend of the Mists had found them again.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, striking down the next arrow with his blade. His heart had begun to pound even faster, unnerved by his healer’s strange behavior.

"The meaning of this is that I'm leaving," Raquel said. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll get behind that _fucking_ rock and _let me_."

Kaldur opened his mouth, then shut it, too stunned to speak.

"Kaldur!" Artemis called from behind. "Argue later! You'll get no answers dead!"

"Do what she says, Kaldur," Raquel said softly. Her hand was white-knuckled on her healer's kit which, Kaldur now noticed in a strange moment of razor sharp clarity, was bulging not with the hard shapes of bottles and ointments, but with lumps of what he could only assume was food and clothing. "Part of the deal I made with him was that I'd lead you out here- Don't make his task easier than I've already done," she finished, voice cracking.

"Kaldur, you _ass_ \- Conner, _grab_ him," Artemis shouted as another arrow went whizzing by Kaldur's shoulder, just scraping along the plate.

"Raquel," said Kaldur, voice hoarse with disbelief. He barely had the presence of mind to take another step back to keep from taking the next arrow straight to the chest. "Why have you - why would you betray us like this?"

He could hear Conner rushing up behind him, but couldn't bring himself to turn away.

A sick look of pitying disgust twisted her features as she stared him down, stepping back and further away. "My name is Raquel Ervin," she said slowly, as if to an imbecile. "I was born in a small village in Kodata to a midwife and an herbalist six years before your _father_ ," she spat the word like it was poison, "burned my home to the ground. His soldiers killed my father. I _wish_ they'd only killed my mother, but that's not what happened." She took a shuddering breath, stepping further away.  

Strong arms- _Conner_ , Kaldur thought dully- circled his waist and yanked him away towards the outcrop.

"When his army finished watching my village burn," Raquel shouted after him, angry tears streaming down her face, "They gathered up the survivors and gave us a choice- Join King David's auxiliary, serve as his scouts and foot soldiers in Reginia, or _die_."

"My father is an honorable man," Kaldur protested weakly as Conner dragged him away. "He would never condone--"

" _Fuck_ your condonation," she shouted, making a furious slashing motion across her chest. " _Fuck_ your honorable King, you poor, _blind **bastard**_. It doesn't _matter_ whether or not your father knew about it, it doesn't _matter_ if he doesn't like it or condone it- his army _did it_. His captains did it, and do you know what he gave them?" she screamed, voice hoarse with grief. "He gave them a fucking **_medal_**. That's who your father is, Kaldur! That's who you're fighting this war for, that's why you're invading a country that hasn't raised its hand against you or yours.

"You noble, brainwashed fool," she finished softly, barely audible over the rising wind and swish of falling arrows. "You're fighting on the side of monsters and you don't even _know it_."

Scarce were the words out of her mouth when she’d turned and made for the trees, strides long and back straight, though the subtle shaking in her shoulders told a more complicated story. Kaldur stared after her, her words ringing in his ears as Conner dragged him to the rocks and hefted his shield up between them and the trees, from which the arrows had temporarily ceased to come.

It couldn’t be true. Kodata had been a tiny nation, barely clinging to its own sovereignty in the face of the Reginian barbarians who constantly raided its farms and mills. Raya had only stepped in to protect it with annexation. It had been an act of mercy, not of conquest – she had to be lying, his father would never...

A sharp crack across the face brought him into the present moment – Artemis had slapped him.

“Kaldur!” she snapped. “The vast expanse of your own mind can wait! We need you _now!”_

“I – “ he began, staring off toward the woods.

The Fiend of the Mists – Raquel had been working with him along, telling him of their movements, their secrets. Even her friendship must have been a ploy to work her way into their inner circle. The Fiend had poisoned her against them, turned her misplaced hatred for the acts of a few corrupt soldiers toward the entirety of Raya, convinced her to lead them to this death trap, to abandon them here...

“Find a way back to the others,” Kaldur ordered, something empty and wrathful burning in his eyes. His own voice sounded strange to him, as if he was speaking from far away. “Dig them out if you have to. Bring them to the frontlines.”

“Kaldur, what are you – “

“ – I have business with the man who took our friend, and tried to take my life,” he said.

And without another word, he’d thrown himself from the safety of Conner’s shield back onto the hillside, and began to charge toward the trees, blood pounding in his ears.

“Can you hear me, Reginian scum?!” he bellowed, blades up and out. Something hot and horrible was roaring in the back of his skull. His mind could hold no thoughts, no reason.

There was only _rage_ , hurt and betrayed and angry and scratching out his insides like a beast trapped in his chest. And all of it was that _craven_ _bastard’s_ fault.

As if in response, another arrow screamed out of the trees, but Kaldur slashed it out of the air with a viciousness that surprised even him.

“I am coming for you! And I swear on my father’s honor, I will not stop until your blood runs down both my blades!”

As if response, another arrow buried itself directly between his feet. The message from the archer was clear- _Try me._

Peering into the forest trees, Kaldur caught a flash of movement amongst the rustling pines. Sure enough, a man emerged high in the trees, just visible enough for Kaldur to see him but blocked by too many boughs for Artemis to have a prayer's chance of getting a good shot.

The man-- and it was a man, tall and sturdy with hair like fire, dressed all in dull reds and browns-- gave him a mocking bow with a sweep of his red cloak before flipping his arm out in a universal, if very rude, gesture, and melting seamlessly back into the trees.

With a howl, Kaldur gave chase.


	2. Illuminations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Separated from the rest of his party, Prince Kaldur'ahm of Raya pursues the Fiend of Mists into the Reginian forest. Roy Harper, disgraced ward of King Oliver, leads his prey into the woods of his homeland, intent on destroying the invading prince and his army. Meanwhile, Artemis and Conner are left to guide the rest of the troops around the mountain, meeting treachery and a mysterious new ally. Allegiances are set, then questioned, and soon the assumptions that our heroes has built their lives around will burn in the light of new information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We live! After two and a half years, a meet-up, some tequila shots, and morning hang-over breakfast together in San Fran, Shade's Ninde and RocksCanFly's Epic YJ Medieval AU is finally getting its second chapter! 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for your patience, and shout out especially to melodytran for their incredibly motivating comment! Thanks for lighting a fire under our asses, and sorry the update took a liiiittle longer than expected!

Roy Harper was not, technically, Prince of Reginia. For starters, he wasn’t the king’s real son, just his ward (and a disgraced ward, at that). More to the point, for Roy to have been a prince, Oliver would have had to be a proper king, which was...a stretch, to put it generously. Oliver spent about as much time overseeing the kingdom as he spent overseeing Roy’s schooling -- not much -- and was better known for gallivanting around the realm to meddle in his citizens’ daily lives than for any sort of royal presence or leadership.

Fortunately, Roy had long since shrugged off any formal association with the Crown. No longer did he find himself known as the Bastard Prince or the False Heir, titles that were muttered behind his back at court. Now, most of his titles were whispered in fear or shouted in anger to his face -- Reginia's Shadow, the Crimson Death, Death's Arrow, The Fiend of Mists, assassin, plague, coward…

These titles, grand and ignominious alike, had been earned in service to his people, and the world. In perfect honesty, Roy was quite proud of them.

When he was very young, Roy had learned well the costs of war. As he grew in the Reginian court, he had learned the _causes_. Wars were not fought for the sake of the people, Roy had found as he attended meetings at Oliver’s side, as he studied history and politics and was subjected to the rants and rambles of the bloated, powerful men and women who came to and from Oliver's court. Rather, he learned that wars were often fought for power, or pride, or to bring wealth to a few fortunately born people who would themselves never be forced to suffer the horrors of a battlefield without the safety of fine armor, good horses, and expensive protective magic.

To fight in a war, Roy had decided at the young age of sixteen, would be a useless and selfish thing to do.

To stop wars from occurring? _That_ was a much more useful calling.

So Roy took it upon himself to become an assassin, akin to the famed archers and knifemen of the Shadowlands in fighting style if not in purpose and allegiance. Where those warriors often allied themselves to rulers for power and money, Roy allied himself to no one, not even his own king and guardian. Using the considerable resources and training afforded to him by his upbringing, Roy had set out on a lofty mission to end war.

Or, failing that--and Roy had seen by now that it was inevitable that he _would_ fail, because no matter the number of greedy, power-hungry bastards he put in the ground this hydra would always sprout more heads--at least balance the scales a bit.

Frustratingly, he found he was failing even that secondary mission at the moment, as signaled by the continued presence of the spoiled twit chasing him into the forest.

Roy leapt lightly through the trees, cognizant of the enraged, gullible princeling who followed. Smiling to himself, he fired an arrow wildly behind him, more to keep the prince aware of his position than anything else.

He wouldn't want the idiot getting lost in the forest all alone, now would he?

_No_ , Roy thought, leaping forward again, snatching up a refill of arrows for his quiver from one of the various stashes he'd left for himself on the way to his destination.  _We wouldn't want that at all._

He continued forward for another two miles, dodging lightly from tree to tree, swinging on ropes attached by quick-fired arrows where the gaps were too large. He made sure to stay just in front of the prince, moving in a pattern of twists and curves that would hopefully shake off any loyal soldiers following their commander. Roy was uninterested in killing them. They were fodder, pawns in a game they couldn’t hope to understand. He had no quarrel with them.

If the Shadowland assassin or the brutish young lieutenant followed, however, Roy wouldn’t hesitate to put an arrow through their throats alongside their leader.

Grabbing a last stash of arrows, Roy noted that he was closing in on his destination and surged forward. He entered the clearing just ahead of the prince--who, he noted begrudgingly, had kept up very well. Roy dodged into a large tree, disappearing behind the thick foliage and camouflaging cloth he had set up for just this moment.

Settling into his position, Roy fired a single arrow--scarlet fletched--into the middle of the field, and waited.

Seconds later, the Rayan prince came running into the clearing. Swords up in a guarded position, he scanned the trees, searching for Roy. Failing to spot the archer’s hiding place, the young, dark man stepped forward and plucked the arrow from the ground.

“Is your plan to allow me to chase you until I die of boredom?” he said loudly, snapping the arrow between two mailed fingers. “Or is it to shoot me down from the trees, like the coward you are? It would be a fine example of Reginia’s usual snivelling, cravenly tactics, I suppose,” he mocked, obviously trying to draw Roy out to meet him. The prince likely assumed that Roy was totally unskilled in close combat just because the archer didn’t run up to every enemy and bare his throat to their swords in that magnificent stupidity that Rayans oft mistook for bravery.

When Roy did not appear to rise to his bait, the prince seemed, oddly, to grow calmer rather than more agitated.  He shifted his weight back on one foot, better settling himself to dodge any arrows Roy sent his way.

“I suppose it must be expected,” he said coolly, with all the superior arrogance that Roy had come to expect from his kind, “That an assassin in service to craven King Oliver, nutless paper tiger of Reginia, would use such gutless tactics.”

Up in the trees, Roy managed to suppress a guffaw of laughter. Why the little prince thought Roy would rise to such common, uninventive insults to King Oliver was beyond him. The man acted as if any member of Oliver’s court hadn’t heard the same and worse every day for years. He supposed that he expected Roy to leap down in a fit of indignant anger to avenge the insults, as if Roy were one of the Rayan’s own stupid, honor-obsessed countrymen. Pah!

“Or perhaps you serve another power, hmm?” the prince continued as his eyes continued to scan the trees, mouth twisted in an angry line. “Oliver’s silver-tongued harlot, that common crow who thinks herself a noble raven?”

_Oh_ , Roy thought, seething as he slung his bow on his back, drawing his short sword. _I’m going to make you eat those words, you little_ ** _worm._** _Ollie is an ass, but no one talks like that about Dinah of Lance and lives._

* * *

Kaldur was unused to feeling overcome by emotion of any variety. Fear, joy, sorrow, anger, it didn’t matter what – since he’d first been able to speak, he’d been able to hold his tongue, to school his words and his countenance to keep his true feelings advantageously hidden.  

The sensations that had gripped him as he’d chased the Reginian assassin through the woods, though, were like nothing he’d felt before. Not even when his father had first told him the tale of his mother’s treason had he felt such fresh rage and deep betrayal, and with them, a raw bloodlust he’d never experienced had come rushing into his veins, sending his mind over the brink of reason. On some level he could sense he had been led somewhere, that if his enemy had planned well enough to use Raquel against him, this was certainly some kind of trap as well. But that suspicion had been thoroughly obliterated beneath his desire to see the man’s body relieved of his head.

Breathing heavily, Kaldur glared up into the trees, the sound of his last insult fading into the forest as he mentally prepared a new one – anything to draw the bastard out. But before he could voice his next slur, a disturbance in the boughs of a particularly large tree drew his attention and as if out of nowhere, the red-cloaked man dropped out of its foliage to land lightly on the floor of the clearing. The sudden movement dislodged the man’s hood, and for the first time, Kaldur locked eyes with the enemy.

He was surprisingly young – for some reason, Kaldur had pictured the Fiend of the Mists as a grizzled old soldier, someone who’d seen many seasons of war, many years of death. But the figure before him – a tall, lean man with a hard jawline and eyes of startling blue – couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Kaldur himself.  His bow, an impressive weapon of reddish yew, was slung across his back, while he lifted a plain short sword before him and assumed a defensive stance.

_Come and get me,_ his gaze seemed to invite. Kaldur was more than happy to oblige.

“Decided to act the man after all?” Kaldur challenged, advancing with both swords drawn. The blood was rushing fast in his ears, but he forced himself to breathe evenly, to think clearly enough to note the subtleties of his opponent’s movements - at Kaldur’s approach, the Fiend had circled to the right, his footwork clean and practiced - this was a man familiar with the sword as well as the bow. Kaldur adjusted his course in turn, and the two fell into step, slowly rotating around one another as each waited for an opportune moment to strike. 

Finally, sensing that neither was going to do anything so stupid as edge too close to the tree roots or take a full frontal swing, Kaldur slashed up with his left blade at a diagonal, following up quickly with the right when his opponent moved to deflect. Their blades met in a cascade of sparks, the Fiend twisting his sword to block the first blow and his body to dodge the second – a split second later Kaldur had retracted both his weapons and they were back to circling, neither worse for the wear.  

Irritated, Kaldur grit his teeth and tried a different tactic, feinting a downward strike to lure his opponent down and then sidestepping to swing at his shoulder, hoping to land a hard enough blow to disarm him. But the Fiend simply executed a quick backstep and watched both blows cleave the air before him, a ghost of a smile flickering across his face.

“Clearly you enjoy playing games,” Kaldur spat as he brought his blades back to his chest and fell back into step. “I wonder if you would find a real fight half so amusing.”

Grinning nastily, the Fiend ducked down, sweeping out a leg in an attempt to knock Kaldur off balance. But Kaldur, well-acquainted with that move (a favorite of Artemis’s), held his ground and drove his right sword straight down in response, hoping to skewer the offending limb. In that he failed, but the tip of the weapon sank a few inches into the ground and blocked the oncoming kick. Regaining his footing quickly, the Fiend attempted to capitalize on Kaldur’s temporary loss of the one sword by taking a stiff swipe up at the prince, but Kaldur’s left sword was already in place to defend against such an attack, and once more they returned to their defensive prowl, neither staying still for even a moment.

“Nothing to say, Reginian scum?” Kaldur mocked, trying to mask the rage still quickening his breath. He took a slashing jab forward that once again, his opponent deflected cleanly. “No excuses to make for failing to kill me three weeks ago?”

The Fiend ducked back as they neared one edge of the clearing, deftly stepping backwards over a gnarled root and placing himself just outside the open area, where the trees began to close in. Kaldur, sensing that his opponent was maneuvering for tactical advantage, lifted his swords and executed an aggressive triple swing, attempting to get close enough to the other man to redirect him back into the clearing. But the assassin was too clever by half and dodged sideways into the protective arms of an old oak tree – Kaldur’s assault clipped the leaves and sent foliage raining down around them, but never made contact. To add insult to injury, a moment later the red-cloaked man had spiraled around the tree and landed himself on the clearing side, forcing Kaldur to pivot to block his next swing, and to take a step further into the forest on the one after that.

“Fight me in the shadows, then,” Kaldur growled. His opponent attacked again, a light thrust that angered Kaldur more than it endangered him, and he retaliated with a series of fierce swings, each of which met the other man’s sword with a loud _clang._ “Hide behind your mountains and your mists – your cowardice disgusts me.”

The man just smiled again, a cold expression that never reached his blue eyes, and Kaldur felt fresh wrath erupt inside him.

“What did you offer her?” he demanded, throwing his full strength into the next thrust of his right blade, which grazed past assassin’s shoulder as the man deftly dodged away yet again. “What lies did you tell the healer to buy her loyalty?!”

The Fiend said nothing as the two continued to dance ever deeper into the wood, the clashes of their swords muffled by the thick growth of the Reginian forest.

* * *

 

As the fight had drawn on, Roy found himself becoming more and more begrudgingly impressed with the prince's skills. Against most opponents, Roy usually would have found an opening by now, but the other man held fast. As it quickly became apparent that Roy had dangerously underestimated his opponent, he had turned to the trees. He wasn't going to retreat and take the man out with a well-placed arrow, not yet. The man had insulted _Dinah_ \--he deserved the humiliation of dying by the blade of a "Reginian coward".

Now Roy was _still_ being beat back. The Rayan prince was that dangerous breed of swordsman who was as agile as he was powerful, and utterly relentless. Roy felt himself tiring as he blocked yet another set of blows from those sharp, gleaming swords. His only saving grace was the prince's anger, driven by Roy's own silence, which seemed to be making the man's offense sloppy.

_If only it had the same effect on his defense_ , Roy thought to himself as he swung down hard to the Rayan’s unprotected side, only to have the blow blocked with one curved blade as he was forced to duck a swipe from another. _I could land a blow and finally be done with this pontificating prick_.

Roy considered, despite his earlier bravado, that he may be forced to flee into the trees at this point. His rage at the insult to Dinah aside, he’d worked too long and too hard to kill this son of a bitch to let himself sacrifice it all in the name of pride.

And, despite the advantage the trees gave him--allowing him to duck and dodge through the foliage, leading the prince over tricky roots and praying for him to stumble so Roy could relieve him of his beautiful, arrogant head--he was uncomfortably close to being outmatched.

Parrying yet another strike, Roy twisted around a large tree in hopes of catching the prince from behind. As he turned, he paused, catching a whiff smell of smoke on the wind.

_That’s no good,_ Roy thought.

When the prince twisted to face Roy, the man was met with a smoke bomb to the face rather than the blade he had been expecting to block.

Leaving his opponent coughing and cursing angrily, Roy quickly disengaged himself from the fight, shooting an arrow with line into a tall tree. He went over the possible explanations in his head as he shimmied up the rope to the safety of the highest branches.

Smoke in a forest was not, under normal circumstances, anything unusual or worrying. Many Reginians in these parts made their livings producing charcoal or by hunting--but no one should have been close enough the Roy would be able to smell their campfire or the smoke from their kilns. This _particular_ forest was abandoned, left deserted a few weeks ago after Roy had convinced the denizens of the nearby village, through various means (including one memorable night spent covered in flour and stips of gauze), that the place had become haunted.

It was a necessary deception meant to keep them away from the fight he knew was coming. If, by chance, he and the prince had stumbled across a wandering peasant in their battle, Roy would not have put it past the prince to take a hostage.

_Apparently someone isn’t afraid of ghosts,_  Roy thought to himself wryly as he scaled the tallest branches. Up here, he’d be able to find the source of the smoke and steer the fight clear of-

_Fuck all gods._

A column of thick, black smoke rose up in the distance, about two miles away. It was enormous, far too large to be anything as innocent as a simple campfire, and only seemed to be _growing_. An errant gust of wind blew soot towards Roy’s face, stinging his eyes red.

The village was burning.

Something like terror chilled down Roy’s spine. The Rayan armies weren’t have supposed to have made it this far into Reginian territory yet. His network of scouts throughout the borderlands hadn’t warned him of any approaching forces, he was supposed to have more time to evacuate the village, no one was supposed to be _here_ -

_But they are,_ Roy cut himself off. _Someone’s here, someone’s burning the village. Someone’s killing the villagers._

Drawing an arrow from his quiver, Roy shot it to the farthest tree, about ten feet lower than he himself stood. Then he staked the end of the line into the branch above him, hooked a large, complicated metal hook with rolling wheels and a handle that was designed precisely for the purpose onto the rope, and launched himself into the descent. The world blurred around him as he sped off in the direction of the smoke.

“You have got to be--Get back here, you craven sack of cowardly shit!” The prince bellowed after him.

Roy ignored him.

He had bigger concerns.

_Someone’s going to_ **_pay._ **

* * *

Watching the Fiend’s figure whistle by him and into the trees, Kaldur felt a fresh wave of rage surge through him, an exclamation of disbelief and anger ripping from his mouth unbidden. After all that chase and combat, the cur was fleeing back into his precious forest?

It didn’t even occur to him to let the matter drop. Swords still out, Kaldur tore into the forest after his foe, slashing at the foliage in his path as he kept his eyes on the taut rope above. He might not have been able to see the Fiend anymore, but he could deduce where the bastard would end up, and if he was quick enough, perhaps he could catch him before he could get much farther. There was no way he would let the sun set with the both of them still breathing – the northern scum was going to pay for playing games with his inner circle.

Only after several long minutes of running through the forest, fighting against the fatigue of bearing himself and his heavy armor quickly enough to keep a prayer of catching his enemy, did Kaldur himself notice the smoke on the wind.

_So the coward is running for his allies,_ he thought grimly, pressing himself to move more quickly – the terrain made it difficult to keep a quick pace, as did the challenge of keeping the rope in sight through the thick evergreen boughs above. But he didn’t relish the thought of facing the assassin with whatever backup he was seeking to find. It would be more honorable (and much simpler) to finish the duel man to man.

Then as suddenly as he’d had the thought, Kaldur was bursting forth onto the crest of a low hill, the edge of the forest as abrupt as the Fiend’s flight. The faint scent of smoke had become an overwhelming stench, the air thick with the stuff, making him cough and turn away slightly. Before him stood a small village – some thirty humble houses and shops of wood and thatch. As he raised an arm to shield his face from the smoke, Kaldur spotted its source – the central square was on fire, flames already leaping from the roofs of two or three buildings toward the bellies of the rain-swollen clouds above. Even from a distance, he could hear the crackle and feel a tinge of the heat, but even more jarring were the frightened screams and shouts of the villagers as they fled their burning homes.

And suddenly Kaldur’s heart leapt, though whether in pleasure or dismay he was suddenly unsure. There were soldiers in the town below, soldiers with pikes and swords menacing frightened huddles of  townsfolk, soldiers bearing torches toward the next closest row of houses. Others stood over the still bodies of those who seemed to have resisted. All wore the tunics of Savage Land mercenaries, the forces Raya’s allies had reportedly sent to assist in the Reginian invasion some weeks ago.

Momentarily forgetting about the Fiend, whom Kaldur had lost in the chaos below, Kaldur rushed forward, reaching the bottom of the hill and proceeding into the outer ring of the village.

“Soldier,” he barked to the first armored man he encountered. The man, face hidden by his helmet, looked up at him, but neither bowed nor saluted as he halted with torch in hand by the entrance to what seemed to be the apothecary. “What are you doing so far from the capital? Where is your commander--stop this senselessness and take me to him _immediately_!”

He hadn’t been tracking his own movements with nearly enough care, but he had studied this region extensively, and had been kept informed of all Rayan and Savage Land military movements via hawk and scout. There were no soldiers in this area - it was a rural outpost, with no military value; its people were unlikely even to produce soldiers to send to the capital, much less to host a garrison of them.

The man looked him briefly up and down--pausing to note the crest emblazoned on his armor--then stepped toward the apothecary without response, extending the torch in his hand towards the thatched roof. Kaldur sheathed one sword and shot out a hand, catching the man’s wrist.

“Soldier,” he repeated, voice laden with threat this time. “By the authority of the King himself, I order you to stand _down_.”

Out of nowhere, an arrow sang toward them both--Kaldur dropped the man’s arm to dodge it, rolling to the side and back upright. As he’d expected, the Fiend of the Mists stood at the end of the lane, already notching another shaft to send their way. But closer to home, the soldier who’d disregarded Kaldur’s question had reached up and, without hesitation, lit the edge of the roof.

Realizing that the point of hesitation was past, Kaldur stepped forward and lashed out at the man with his right sword, dealing him a blow to the arm that send the torch flying out of his grip. Taking a split second to see it land a safe distance from the buildings, Kaldur proceeded to disarm the rogue soldier with a series of quick slashes and thrusts, even as he lifted a hand to the sky and focused his energy on the imminent rain there. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Fiend lifting his bow, a fresh arrow nocked, but the man seemed to hesitate, as though waiting to see what it was Kaldur was actually doing.

With a grunt of exertion, Kaldur capitalized on the flickering connection he felt to the water floating above him and brought down a short burst of rain. It didn’t seem to hurt the fire much, but the immediate dampness of the rest of the roof gave the nascent blaze nowhere to go, and a moment later it had vanished into smoke.

The man he’d disarmed, who now stood against the apothecary with Kaldur’s blade tickling his throat, gave a bitter laugh.

“You waste your time, Rayan,” he spoke, and though Kaldur still couldn’t see his face, it sounded as though he were smiling. “It will all burn, in time.”

“Who sent you here?” Kaldur demanded, still acutely aware of the Fiend watching him with arrow drawn. He would take care of him in a moment--first, he wanted answers.

“An authority greater than your own,” the man replied.

“I am Kaldur’ahm, Crown Prince of Raya and general to the northern division of this army,” Kaldur spat. “In these lands, there _is_ no greater authority.”

“I take no orders from northern pond scum,” the man sneered back. In the background, new screams of terror pierced the air. Giving up on the brute before him, Kaldur drew back his sword, then plunged it forward - he didn’t have time for this. The villagers needed him. As the man’s lifeless body slumped to the ground before the apothecary, Kaldur turned himself in the direction of the screams, drew his other blade, and took off. The Fiend would have to wait.

Roy had expected the princeling to follow him to the village--an annoyance, sure but keeping him from following would have taken precious time that Roy just hadn't _had_ , not with innocent lives in danger.

It had taken him only a moment to locate the center of the fire--in the town square, because where else do invading armies ever light fires?--and only a moment more to recognize the cause.

Savage Land mercenaries. Vicious, destructive brutes infamous for their cruelty and destruction. And far, _far_ from where they should be, if Roy’s sources in the Rayan-Savage alliance were worth a damn.

_Fantastic,_ he thought to himself as sighted a mercenary setting another roof ablaze. _I needed a little target practice today, and the prince certainly wasn’t polite enough to oblige me._

But as he took aim he saw a large brute of a man pull a child from the arms of her screaming father. The thug kicked the man in the chest, then wrestled the girl until he was pressing a filthy knife to her throat. Seconds later an arrow sprouted from his own, killing him instantly and drenching the crying child in blood. Roy was already reloading-- strategic targets aside, he needed to put down the mercenaries who posed an immediate danger to the villagers first.

Three targets later and Roy was hiding out on top of one of the roofs, cursing as an arrow sailed over his head. The bastards had him pinned down from two sides, and he had no reinforcements, no cover. His best bet would be if one of the villagers--

“--Soldier! What are you doing so far from the capital?,” a voice--the prince--shouted. The man went on to berate one of the mercenaries, from the sound of it. Peeking over the roof, Roy observed the prince shouting, furious, at an unresponsive mercenary.

_Now or never_. Roy leapt down from the roof, running around to flank the unsuspecting prince and avoid the enemy’s archers.

Then, to Roy’s shock, the prince ordered the man to stand down, going to far as to disarm and kill the man when the mercenary set another roof ablaze.

Had that really just happened? Had the Rayan prince gone _mad_ ? Maybe it was because the mercenary hadn’t seemed to respect his orders, whatever they had been. _Yes_ , Roy thought to himself. _He’s_ **_Rayan_** _, so of course he’d value his pride over the life of one of his allies. That has to be the answer._

Thoughts still unsettled, Roy climbed to the next adjacent rooftop, staying low and following the prince into the town’s square. The rest of the village seemed to be abandoned but for a few villagers gathering animals and children in preparation to spirit them into the forest. The mercenaries had all gone to the square, abandoning the easy targets for something more important.

As he crested the last rooftop, ducking low into the shadow of an overhanging tree, Roy saw what that thing was.

A woman, wearing the traditional robes and iron chain of a village mayor, had been tied to a tree in the center of the square. Hasty kindling--broken crates and barrels, thatch from roofs--had been piled up around her. The Savage land mercenaries were gathered there, cowing a crowd of villagers into a huddle next to the tree.

They were going to make the villagers watch while they burned the mayor to death.

Seeking out the leader of the band, Roy cursed himself. He’d never taken the time to learn much about Savage Land mercenaries--he’d never thought he’d have to deal with them. His specialty was powerful, highly guarded targets. Not roving bands of murderers.

He had no way to tell which one of them was the leader, and he needed to solve that fast. The moment whoever was behind this gave the order, he had no doubt the mayor would go up in flames before he had time to do anything to save her.

After a few seconds he spotted the prince in a tangle of mercenaries. He was arguing loudly with one of them, making sweeping gestures with his swords. He seemed angry, as if he disapproved of what was happening. Apparently frustrated, he made a move towards the tree where the captive was held--four mercenaries came up to block him, swords drawn.

Just what the _hell_ was going on?

The moment the Savage Landers’ blades had turned on him, Kaldur lost all hesitation. With a short, impatient jab of his sword, he sent the first man’s weapon spinning out of his hands and onto the sod below, leaving him with no way to parry the full-weighted swing of the prince’s second sword. He crumpled to the ground a moment later. By this time the others had deduced that Kaldur was not, in fact, going to hold back, and had launched attacks of their own, swinging for the vulnerabilities in his armor.

Realizing there was no way for him to block all three blows at once, Kaldur dodged backwards, mindful not to trip over the flammables piled around the area. He could take on three ordinary men, certainly, but these were cutthroat soldiers, practiced agents of death - he would need to separate them or risk leaving himself open to attack.

Gritting his teeth, Kaldur parried a swipe from one of the men and sidestepped another from a second. A third blow glanced off his pauldron, sending shockwaves down his arm as he tried to maneuver himself so that he wasn’t in the center of all three.

Turning to defend himself, he was surprised to see and arrow tip burst from the other man’s throat.

“Duck, you crazy Rayan bastard!” a voice called. Kaldur managed to duck just in time, dodging a swipe from behind by yet another soldier and, incidentally, the arrow that flew from the sky to bury itself in the man’s unprotected eye.

The archer-- the _Fiend_ , of all people-- continued to lay down suppressing fire on the mercenaries around him with nigh impossible speed and accuracy. The man seemed to have abandoned their animosity in favor of protecting the village.

Not one to complain about good fortune, however baffling, Kaldur took advantage of the archer’s help, tripping one mercenary and stabbing him through the thigh as he hit the ground – the man wasn’t dead, but he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. Kaldur kicked his enemy’s sword out of reach, ducked another arrow, and took the luxury of looking around for the Savage Landers’ squad leader. The man had been there but a moment before. What was he–-there, by the pyre from which the goons had been taking their torches. The man was dipping an oil-ragged length of wood in the blaze.

He was going to ignite the kindling, fight or no fight.

“Reginian!” he called out, distracted by the two newly arrived soldiers who’d just set upon him. “The torchman!”

He was too far away to reach the man in time to stop him from lighting the thing up, but perhaps the archer could delay him.

An arrow sailed through the air, only to bury itself uselessly in the ground. The squad leader seemed to be significantly better at dodging than his underlings. The Fiend nocked another arrow, took aim--

And was ruthlessly attacked from behind by a mercenary. The man must have snuck up behind the Fiend in the chaos. Cursing and dodging the man’s knife, the Fiend was unable to focus on bringing down the squad leader before he reached the pyre.

Kaldur sprinted forward, rolling under yet another blade. As he ran towards the pyre he saw the Fiend plunge a short sword into his assailant's neck. Freed from the threat, the archer snatched his bow from where it had dropped on the rooftop. He hastily nocked an arrow and swung it up to take aim-

But it was too late. The squad leader had made it to pyre. As he thrust the burning rag into the center of the kindling , he shouted to the still-huddled crowd of unarmed villagers. “Look on your leader and despair, people of Reginia,” he crowed, face lit up demonically by the rising flames. “Your precious democracy cannot save you, your heroes cannot save you, your nutless king cannot save you! King Vandal is coming, and all who do not bow to him will burn like this weak, screaming bit--”

The man was cut off when an arrow buried itself in his chest, punching straight through his rusted mail shirt. With a soft, choked sound, he fell backwards into the flames.

“Rayan, save the woman,” the Fiend shouted, leaping down from his perch. “I’ll work on rescuing the villagers!”

Kaldur’s first impulse was to bristle at the order – who did the rogue think he was, commanding him to do anything? But the feeling was quickly lost in the urgency of the moment. This was no time for pride. There were lives on the line.

Faced with a snap judgment – douse the nascent flames or pull the mayor from their path – Kaldur opted for the more direct rescue. The Savage Landers had piled up an extraordinary amount of flammable debris, making for a very awkward scramble; Kaldur found himself hacking at the wooden barriers with his swords even as he clambered over each piece, trying to reach the woman bound at the center of it all. All the while, he could feel the heat flickering before him, the threat ever closer as he neared his target.

As he finally crested the last of the piled crates and branches, Kaldur locked eyes with the mayor, who even now viewed him with a lifted chin, suspicion and fear in her expression.

“Be still,” he ordered.

He swung his left blade in a powerful arc, aiming for the rope just behind her right arm. It was a good blow, but even so, only the first few lengths of rope broke, so he took to sawing, swiftly sheathing his other sword to hold the length steady.  With every hack of his blade, the heat grew stronger, making sweat bead on his forehead. He hardly dared look up from his task – he knew that what had been little more than a campfire a few moments ago had already turned into a steady blaze.

“It seems inefficient to save me here only to kill me later,” the woman spoke, her voice strangely calm–calmer than Kaldur felt, at least.

“I never intended harm on you, northerner,” he replied, focused on the ropes – just a few more lengths, and they’d be…

At last, the last of the twine split and the woman sagged forward. Being bound had sapped her strength--or at least her circulation.

Without hesitation, Kaldur dipped down, flipping the woman over his shoulder as he turned just in time to see a knife flying his way. The Savage Landers didn’t quit, apparently. Striking the projectile down with his blade, Kaldur quickly assessed the path before him, took a bounding leap up onto a barrel that stood higher up in the kindling, and hurled himself and his burden away from the flames.

Almost immediately he was set upon by another mercenary, this one wielding a cruel, heavy mace. Smiling at him viciously, she advanced, raising a small round shield to block any preemptive strikes he might use to defend himself. Shifting, Kaldur considered dropping his burden so as to better defend them both.

But, in an almost predictable move, just as she reached him an arrow sprouted from her throat, sending her toppling to his feet.

“Get the mayor to safety and evacuate the village!” the Fiend yelled from across the courtyard, where he was still managing to hold off a pack of mercenaries that were trying to herd him into the corner between two cottages. “This place is done for now that the fire’s going!”

Flipping-- _flipping_ , like some sort of court acrobat--the Fiend managed to escape the mercenaries closing in on him. Ignoring them, he drew his sword and ran forwards towards the three Savage-Landers holding the group of villagers prisoner.

“Get the hell out of here!” he shouted at the villagers as he engaged one of the guards, briefly locking short swords with him before pulling a dagger from his belt and slashing the man’s throat.

“There’s only two of them! You need to run or you’re going to burn here anyway!” he snarled at the group.

One villager--a younger woman with a grubby child gripping each of her hands--snapped out of her terror. Picking the smaller of the children up, she dodged behind one of the guards, barely escaping the man’s wild stroke at her head. Still gripping the older child, she sprinted out of the village, heading out towards the forest. The rest of the group shook their own stupor off as she made her escape, and the lot of them headed for the safety of the trees.

One guard, the one Roy wasn’t currently grappling with, managed to grab one young man by the waist. Holding a wicked dagger to the boy’s neck, he backed away towards one of the few building that wasn’t already burning.

Spotting something behind the man, Roy dropped his sword to his side. To the great concern of the mercenary and his captive alike, the redhead grinned.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said loudly as the man inched closer and closer to the building, clearly intending to round the corner.

“You so much as draw your bow and the kid’s dead, Reginian shit,” the mercenary growled.

“I wouldn’t worry about my bow if I were you, fucknuts. You’ve got bigger problems to worry about,” Roy said smugly, gesturing for the mercenary to look behind him.

“Like I’m gonna fall for that one. What do you think I am? Some kinda wet eared moro-”

In a pleasant reversal of events, it was not an arrow but two slashing swords that seemed to sprout for the mercenary’s throat, sending his head tumbling to the ground.

The kid, free of danger, stood frozen, eyes wide and fixed on Roy.

“It would be wise for you to find your family in the forest while we attend to the mercenaries and the fire,” a smooth voice counseled him. The Rayan prince emerged from the shadows he had been hiding in, stern faced and, frankly, intimidating in the firelight. The red flames that surrounded them reflected off his black armor, giving the man an otherworldly appearance.

“Drama maven,” Roy scoffed at him even as the boy, terrified, fled into the forest. “Are you actually incapable of showing up to a fight like a normal person? Or is dramatic flair one of the many frivolous things they teach in the Rayan courts?”

“You are one to talk,” Kaldur spat back incredulously, but once again, found himself swallowing his pride in the face of what lay before them. The fire had already leapt to the rooftops surrounding the square and was spreading rapidly outward. The clouds above, though heavy with rain, seemed no closer to delivering a saving downpour than they’d been. And, true to form, the mercenaries had begun to loot the village, pilfering what little of value remained from the burning buildings. Most of the villagers had run, but a few, including the mayor, lingered behind, watching the blaze spread from rooftop to rooftop.

“Why do they stay?” Kaldur asked, brow furrowing as he watched the scene. Any sane person would have run by now.

“Where would they go?” asked Roy, expression twisting. “It’s not like they’ll survive in the forest long--winter is on it's way. And even if they do, no town within a ten day’s march of here could possibly support them all. Most of them may as well be dead,” Roy continued bitterly, eyes fixed on the raging blaze. “I-- _we--_ were too late.”

Kaldur’s expression darkened. He eyed the underside of the clouds. They were so close – he could practically feel the hydrokinetic energy humming within them. But it was a much larger fire than the one in the mess tent had been (the one a certain infuriating archer had set, he was abruptly reminded, and shifted himself out of swords’ reach of the other man).  Could he possibly…?

But he had to try. If he didn’t, then their rescue of the townspeople had only deferred their demise, not prevented it. Sheathing his swords, he resolved himself to the task at hand, even as he realized that his plan would require he place his full defense in the hands of the man who, not a half an hour ago, had been attempting to kill him.

“I am going to draw down the rain,” he said firmly, turning to the archer. “I trust you will postpone your next assassination attempt until I am finished.”

“You’re going to _what_ ?” the other man asked, tone incredulous. “Wait, you’re a _sorcerer_? No one told me you were a fucking sorcerer. Wait,” the Fiends eyes narrowed, tone suspicious. “Isn’t sorcery illegal in--”

“Just cover me while I save your people’s village,” Kaldur snapped, suddenly uncomfortable. Sheathing his swords on his back, he stripped off his gloves. He didn’t like exposing his hands when he used his magic, but with the size of this fire he was going to need as little interference between him and the water in the air as possible. He wouldn’t risk stripping away his armor to uncover his arms, though - not with the assassin so close, and the mercenaries doubtless regrouping somewhere. His hands would have to be enough.

Raising his arms above his head, he imagined physically grasping the water in the clouds above him, visualising it condensing and pulling down in a stream towards the spreading fire.

“A motherfucking sorcerer,” Roy whispered to himself as he watched the prince. The other man’s face had smoothed out into a cool mask of calm as he reached up towards the sky, fingers appearing to grasp for the clouds above them. _No wonder my plan for their mess hall didn’t work,_ he mused to himself. _He must have put the flames out before they could reach the oil Raquel had told me of._

Shaking off his bemusement- and annoyance, because frankly Roy was a little pissed that none of his informants had bothered to mention that the prince could do _magic_ \--magic being a skill you should _know_ about if you’re planning on assassinating someone--Roy sheathed his short sword and drew his bow. He scanned around the burning square, trying to guess which direction the mercenaries would eventually attack from. After a quick look over the rest of the quadrants, he turned back towards the prince to check behind them.

Despite his long years in the Reginian court, Roy had never seen any sorcerer do _anything_ like what the prince was doing.

The man’s hands glowed with a pale blue light that emanated from glowing symbols- like the heads of snakes or eels- that appeared on his hands. That same light shone in the large column of water that twisted its way down from the sky towards them. Roy watched, entranced, as the prince directed the snaking stream over the furthest edges of the fire, corralling the blaze in like wayward sheep or cattle. His eyes, focused wholly on the blaze before him, shone bright green with the reflection of the light.

For the first time in all his long weeks of observing the prince, Roy looked on his sworn enemy and was struck not with rage or vengeance but with admiration.

“Die, Rayan dog!” a voice shouted, and Roy had only a second between hearing the familiar twang of a bowstring before he was spinning, spreading his hands outward automatically to block the incoming arrow.

Kaldur had never attempted to manipulate such a volume of water before, and the strain of it was making his arms shake as he extended them skyward, but at the sound of the shout, he turned his head slightly, trying to divert just a fraction of his attention from the water over which he was barely maintaining control. His eyes found the source just as the arrow found the Fiend’s hand, the head slicing across the man’s palm and spiraling away, diverted from its intended destination, which by the looks of things had been Kaldur’s own head.

Before the Savage Land archer could knock another arrow, Kaldur flicked one hand down, bringing a great cascade of water pouring down over her. It wouldn’t be enough to knock her unconscious or even slow her for long, but perhaps it would be enough to give the Reginian time to apprehend her, if he was still in a condition to do so.  Against his own better judgment, Kaldur felt a pang of concern for his momentary ally, but had to release it or risk losing control over the entire mass of water that still hung over their heads, slowly dampening out the fire that threatened to consume the village.

Roy cursed, clutching his hand as it began to drip blood into the dirt of the square. The cut felt deep, but thankfully not deep enough to have severed a tendon. Quickly digging a strip of cloth from his leggings pocket to staunch the blood, he ran forward towards the archer and her fellow mercenaries while the Rayan prince distracted them with the water. The archer was the greatest threat to the sorcerer, skilled swordsman that he was, and Roy’s best chance of eliminating her as a threat would to be at least get close enough that she was forced to defend herself.

He could only hope the prince finished with the fire in time to help him with the rest. He was a competent swordsman against a lone opponent, but he’d made it a point throughout his combat experience to never get stuck against a large number of enemies at once for a reason.

Roy reached the archer just as she managed to fight free of the water. She went down instantly, sodden leather-and-cloth armor smacking wetly against the dirt as she fell, clutching her slashed throat. Roy moved instantly into an offensive position as the Rayan redirected the water back to the fire, managing to take out one more mercenary as the lot gasped for air. The others recovered quickly, however, and soon it was all Roy could do to keep the rest of the mercenaries- four here, and hopefully the last of their force- at bay.

Kaldur gritted his teeth as he focused on the last of the blaze. Just the square, the center of it all, remained alight, but these flames were the most persistent, the hottest and the tallest in the whole fire. Worse still, the water from the nearby thunderclouds was nearly depleted, and he wasn’t nearly a skilled enough mage to reclaim the water from the ground or from the clouds beyond the boundaries of the village. Aware that time was of the essence - out of the corner of his eye he could spy the Fiend doing his best to ward off a group of several Savage Landers, but it was clear his hand was hindering him - Kaldur focused his energy on the dwindling cloud above him and spread his fingers wide and down, bringing the last of the water crashing down onto the blaze.

In an explosion of steam and smoke, the fire flashed, flickered and went out, hissing and sending clouds of hot, moist air billowing out all through the village.

Taking just enough time to ensure that the blaze was well and truly quenched, Kaldur drew his swords, pivoted towards the fight and took off at a run.

Back turned to the Rayan as he blocked the entrance to the square, Roy didn’t notice that the fire had been extinguished and that the prince had rejoined the fight until one of the two mercenaries attempting to hack him up with swords was suddenly engaged with the prince. Blades dancing, the prince managed to quickly disarm the man before slicing neatly across his throat with one curved sword.

Roy, who had in the few brief seconds of panic caused by the prince’s reappearance in the fight, just managed to notice the last two mercenaries, who had largely hung-back, begin to flee into the forest.

“Oh, no you don’t you little _shits_ ,” he muttered. Deciding that it would be quicker and far more satisfactory to shoot them then run them down, he drew his bow and quickly did exactly that. One arrow caught the shorter man in the chest, who crumpled immediately. The next two caught the last man in the legs, crippling him.

“Your aim seems to be off,” the prince commented from the side. He was busy wiping his blades clean with a cloth while he surveyed the ruined square. Prick hadn’t even turned to see the mercenaries escaping, seemingly trusting Roy to take care of it.

“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” Roy snapped back, advancing on the fallen man. “You of all people should know that Savage Land bands never attack just one village when they’re pillaging countrysides.”

Kaldur bit his tongue and didn’t reply to the other man’s quip. Yes, he knew of Savage Land bands by reputation – on the border with Centralia, a country far to the south, they were known to be barbarously pitiless, indiscriminately murdering citizens and razing entire villages to the ground as they tried to do with this one. Yet he’d never seen it happen until now, because the Savage Landers’ blades had been promised to his father, and had been acting under Rayan command. This group, intent on slaughter rather than conquest, had clearly had other orders.

Sheathing both his blades (but keeping a close eye on the Reginian), Kaldur watched the other man approach the fallen mercenary and stood off to the side a ways, close enough to hear what was said. He too wanted answers, though he was hesitant to ask the questions he had in front of an enemy spy. No need for the Fiend of the Mists to have intelligence on the state of the Rayan chain of command, which had apparently corroded.

Reaching the fallen man, Roy flipped him over and pressed a knife to his throat. Rather than ripping into him with threats and questions immediately, he allowed a few silent moments to pass. An old friend of Ollie’s had once taught him that stone faced silence and the gentle edge of a knife is an infinitely more efficient approach to interrogation than screaming. The advice had worked so far, and judging from man’s whimpering and unpleasant smell of piss emanating off of him, it was continuing to do so.

“Okay, asshole,” Roy said lowly, twisting the man’s arm behind his back in a hold. “Let's talk about which of my villages your friends are visiting.”

* * *

 

An uncomfortable silence hung between the two men as they made their way through the trees.

“The northern climate does seem to foster a sense of...creativity,” Kaldur finally commented as they hurried up the side of a steep hill, dodging foliage and using sturdier branches for handholds. The Fiend was a half a step in front of him as they made haste toward what the other man had promised was the next village under threat, and in a strange land with a new, common enemy, Kaldur had had no choice but to take his word. “Some of those threats had never even crossed my mind...not even with regards to you.”

Their temporary alliance aside, he wasn’t about to cozy up with the bastard.

"Just because you and your allies can't ask for directions without cutting someone's tongue out," Roy grunted as he ducked beneath some low hanging branches, "Doesn't mean the rest of us have to be so quick to bring out the knives and branding. We're a more civil sort."

The Rayan took in a deep breath behind him, obviously readying a rebuttal. Smirking, Roy let the branch he'd been holding out of their path go. It whistled back into place, smacking into the other man with a heavy _wumph_.

Kaldur muffled his own noise of surprise, eyes narrowing in annoyance as he pushed the offending branch aside.

"Your actions belie your words," he grunted when he’d recovered. “Were there not a horde of rogue soldiers for us to engage on the other side of this mountain, I would abandon my good manners a moment and let you taste my blade.”

Roy tripped over a root, surprised. When the Rayan did not continue the joke, he was forced to evaluate two possibilities. Either the the prince was flirting with him, an assassin bent upon his death, and doing a terrible job of it; or, perhaps even more ridiculously, the prince was so sheltered he didn’t see the blatant innuendo in his own words.

Steeling himself, Roy tested the two options. “I’m pretty sure I can handle your blade,” he scoffed. “Let's see how much you have to say with my shaft in your throat.”

“You can hardly hold a bow at the moment, much less fire it,” Kaldur shot back, using one of his swords to hack down a branch in his way. “I should hardly think us an even match, for which you might be grateful. I’d have had your head an hour ago if I thought the fight fair.”

He let out a curse, frustrated at the relentless wildness of the landscape, and switched topics:  “Are there no _roads_ in your godsforsaken country?”

"In the parts that aren't here to make life difficult for invading armies? Yes,” Roy chuckled. “Will I ensure that you never live to set foot on one unless it's to offer a peace treaty to the council? Absolutely,” Roy continued after catching his breath. “You invade, you trample through mountains and thick forests. That's how it goes."

Kaldur muttered another curse below his breath, glancing up through the trees at the ever-darkening sky. The Fiend had told him the next village over was at least a five-hour journey through the wooded mountains, and while Kaldur was certainly up to the physical trek, even after their fight back in the valley, the prospect of spending another several hours in the company of this insufferable cur was making his head hurt.

But there was no point in cursing fate – right now, a duty lay before him, and before he could consider the day’s terrible luck he had to guarantee that no more Savage Land demons dirtied his country’s name. They had come to Reginia to unite the north under the Rayan flag, not to watch the mountains burn.

The Fiend, on the other hand...well, he could burn, when this was all over. It would be a pity to lose a warrior of such skill and versatility, but Kaldur was not one to indulge pity for long.

"Shit," the Fiend muttered, right before stopping abruptly at the edge of a clearing. "Storm's coming in. We need to hurry if we're going to make it down there in time."

"Afraid of a little rain?" Kaldur sniped.

"We have to climb down a cliff to get the the village, unless you want to take the half-day's journey down the east half of the mountain. I don’t fancy trying to scale down wet rocks, but if that’s a Rayan water-mage specialty then be my guest."

“I am not – “ Kaldur began, then shut his mouth. He didn’t need to defend what he was or wasn’t to the Fiend, of all people, but in his homeland it was true that magic was considered a low art, something used only by people of ill repute. For the most part, he’d kept his sorcerous proclivities a secret (with his father’s encouragement) but in any case, he wasn’t skilled enough to combine mystic arts and mountaineering. “Let us make haste, then.”

Skirting around the clearing out of mutual caution, the two hurried towards the village. Kaldur could still not discern just how the Fiend knew where he was going through the thick foliage. It was not as if the man could use the position of the sun, what with it being hidden behind clouds.

* * *

 

True to Roy's prediction, rain began to fall on them less than twenty minutes into their dash to the cliffs. The water fell gently at first, but it slicked roots and dead leaves, making running more difficult than it already had been. By the time they emerged on the cliff, overlooking a rushing creek and a steep drop, the drizzle had become a downpour.

"Fuck," Roy cursed, staring out over the trees. He couldn't spot any columns of smoke rising up in the distance. That wasn't saying much, considering how little visibility they had with the downpour. But it settled his racing heart, of only a little. “We’re going to have to hole up for the night.”

“Hole up?” Kaldur repeated incredulously. “Surely we don’t have time for such – “

“ –it’ll be faster,” Roy cut him off. “In this weather, it’ll take just as long to go around as it will to wait it out, and this way we can get some rest.”

“There is no guarantee the storm will pass by the morning,” Kaldur argued, glancing down the cliffs.  The rain had only just begun, perhaps it was still dry enough to...but suddenly he remembered the Fiend’s injured hand and bit his tongue. There was no way. It would be risky enough for them to climb down even at full strength, but exhausted and wounded, they were almost guaranteed to fall.

“It’ll pass,” Roy said confidently. “I know these storms. They come quickly, they leave quickly. Now come on--I know a place.”

Roy lead the way to a rise in the rock, receded a little into the forest. There was a cave entrance, situated on higher ground and protected by an overhanging boulder. Set a few feet back from the mouth of the cave was a crude wooden door.

"To keep animals out," Roy explained as he produced a key to the rusty lock. "No one really comes up here but me and the occasional crazed hermit, but finding a bear nestled in with one of my stashes is the last thing I want when I'm hiding out."

"You have multiple such places in these mountains?" Kaldur questioned, stopping in the doorway. Mostly, he was hoping to stall while he evaluated exactly what he was walking into - a trap? An ambush? The culminating step in an elaborate snare, laid by the archer before the day’s events had even begun?

"Shit," Roy muttered, groping along the wall for a torch. "Probably shouldn't have told you that."

Kaldur squinted into the darkness suspiciously.

“You will forgive me if I stand in the rain a moment longer,” he said at last, folding his arms over his chest but keeping them loose so he could draw his sword in a flash if the need arose.

"Okay, Princess, it's not that bad," Roy said, grunting in satisfaction as he found the torch. He dropped to the dirt floor, clenching it between his knees as he attempted to light it with a flint and steel. "Sure it smells ghastly and the hay in the mattress is probably moldy, but it's better than the rain and there's a vent up top so we can have a fire."

“It is not the _smell_ that made me hesitate,” said Kaldur, peering into the space now that the torch made it possible to see inside.

It was definitely cozy-- probably no room to hide a slew of murderous Reginians further in, unless there was some kind of hidden door, but that seemed overinvolved. Deciding it was unlikely that the Fiend had thought this far ahead, Kaldur finally stepped inside, keeping one hand on his sword hilt just in case.

"If I planned on killing you I would have just let you try to scale the cliffs," Roy scoffed. Placing the torch in a hole dug for the purpose, he set about getting the fire started. His clothes were soaked through, and he didn't fancy fighting the Savage Land mercenaries with a wounded hand _and_ a fever. "Make yourself useful and gather some kindling, will you? It's over in the corner there,” he suggested to the prince as he lugged a few small logs over to the fire pit. “You can set your stuff down over near the gear.”

Inwardly bristling at being given orders, but recognizing the sense in them, Kaldur decided to heed just the direct one, and headed to the corner to fetch the kindling.

He had to hand it to the Fiend – odd smells aside, the little hideaway was well-stocked, not just with firewood but with spare clothes, armor, fletching equipment, and what looked to be (hopefully imperishable) food. Whoever and whatever else the man was, he was intelligent and thorough...which, of course, only made him more dangerous.

Declining to strip off a single piece of his armor or weaponry, Kaldur hefted several large lengths of firewood and some smaller pieces for kindling over to the pit and set about arranging them for a proper fire. His inclination toward civility urged him to close the door while he was at it, but he wasn’t about to shut off his escape just yet, so he left it standing for the time being, silently focusing his attention on the nascent fire.

While the Rayan busied himself with trying to coax the slightly damp wood into a flame, Roy began stripping off his wet gear. At this point he was certain he could trust the other man not to murder him in his sleep--the foolishness that passed as honor in the prince's nation was a better shield against the man's swords than plate armor.

"The storm will be over in no more than five hours," Roy commented as he shucked off his various layers. The buckles for his leather bracers were tricky when slick, and having his hand stiffened by injury and bandages wasn't helping. "If we wait an hour after that the cliffs will be dry enough to scale safely, especially once we get the ropes rigged up. After that it's an hour or so to the village. We eat, set our gear out to dry, and try to catch some sleep," Roy continued, bending to unlace his boots. Once they were off he saw to his trousers. He elected to leave the short underclothes alone--he'd change them once the prince was asleep. "I'm guessing you'd want first watch?"

“Certainly,” said Kaldur, eyes flicking over to where the other man was undressing, it seemed, without hesitation or even caution. Kaldur swallowed, suddenly more aware of the way his cold, soaked clothing clung to his own skin.

Clearly, the Fiend was either very foolish, very confident, or very certain Kaldur wouldn’t try to kill him with his britches down. Which, to be fair, Kaldur didn’t plan to do. He turned back to the fire, feeling its heat reach his face at last (yes, it was definitely the fire).

“If you think that exposing yourself will prompt me to do the same, you will find you are mistaken,” he muttered. Sure, the prospect of sleeping in armor was hardly appealing, but neither was the prospect of sleeping at all, with the man who’d almost succeeded in killing him watching just a few meters off.

"I'm guessing the phrase 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' isn't a thing in your culture?" Roy teased. "Don't worry, little prince. If I wanted to kill you tonight you’d already know. But you can keep your clothes on if it makes you feel safe from the fearsome ‘Fiend of the Mist’.”

The prince glared at him, refusing to dignify his teasing with a response. Shrugging, Roy shucked off his undershirt, lining it up with the rest of the clothes near the fire to dry. Making his way over to one of the sacks, he withdrew a small bag of dried fish, some hard tack biscuits, and a few hard, withered apples.

"It's not what you're probably used to," Roy commented as he approached the other man crouched by the fire, "But it's better than going hungry. Dig in. I promise it's not poisoned."

“You will not mind if I ask you to eat it first, then,” said Kaldur, watching the Fiend out of the corner of his eye as he prodded the blaze and hoped the other man wouldn’t notice he was actually pretty wretched at firebuilding (he was a water mage, dammit, and Artemis had always taken over before he’d learned to improve).

Roy rolled his eyes as he sat down beside the prince and crunched off the end of one of the biscuits.

"If you can't get over the idea that I'm going to kill you--before we save the village, you fuck, don't glare--then this is going to be a very long night," Roy complained. "If you don't sleep you're going to be useless to me, so what do I need to do? Let you tie me up for the night?"

The prince’s eyes shifted down to Roy's hand, lingering on the bandage.

“Allow me to put a salve on your injury,” he said quietly, after a pause. “Without full use of your hand you're as useless to me as you claim I would be to you. Trust me to heal it, and I will consider extending the courtesy in return."

"I'm not letting you slather that gunk on my hand," Roy retorted, scooting back. "Raquel told me that a Savage Lander gave it to you. Sentiments toward you aside, I don't trust Savage Landers. No deal."

“You will not trust a Savage Land salve, which restored me the use of my shoulder, yet you would have me trust you, the one who destroyed my shoulder in the first place,” Kaldur summarized dryly, unimpressed.

“I need you alive for now. I don’t know what the Savage Land’s plans are for the Rayan Prince, but judging by those mercenaries they aren’t going to be pretty. Didn’t your mother ever warn you not to take healing salves from desert dwelling psychopaths?”

“No,” said Kaldur curtly. He hesitated a moment before opening the clasp on a pouch that hung from his belt, beside his sword. Reaching inside, he withdrew two small glass vials, each marked with Raquel’s neat script. At that thought, his stomach gave an angry turn–this was the man who had turned his friend against him–but he swallowed the feeling and turned back to the Reginian, who was still watching him intently in the firelight.

“Not of the Savage Lands,” Kaldur explained, uncorking both bottles to let the other man smell their contents and trying to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Raquel’s, Kodatan. She used them to treat my wound before the Savage Land envoy arrived with their own medicines. Though perhaps they were actually designed to slow my recovery, since I know now she was your agent all along. You may make up your own mind on that risk.”

Roy took in Kaldur's glare, the defensive hunch to his shoulders and the bitter downturn of his mouth. "So it's still about her, huh?" Roy asked.

When the prince did not reply, Roy shrugged.

"Believe me, I asked her to poison you--but it wasn't with that. All it would have taken was a couple pinches of powder in your camp’s stew every night for a week to take the lot of you down, and _bam_ ,” Roy chuckled, sliding a finger across his neck in a quick gesture. Then he sighed, settling back to rest on his elbows as he faced into the fire.  “But she wouldn't do it,” he said softly.  His voice was gentle, even fond.

“She didn't want any part of it--the killing, the invading, the wasted lives. That's why she needed me to help her get out. Living under the thumb of the Rayans,” here Roy turned his head to return Kaldur’s accusing glare, blue eyes steely in the firelight. “Your father and his _conquests_ \--there's no way she and her kid were ever going to have peace."

“She has a child?” Kaldur asked, his voice quiet, controlled. “She never mentioned such a thing.”

Raquel had refused to poison him. She had tried to help him recover, even though she had–

Her words from just after the rockslide suddenly came back to Kaldur. He’d been running and fighting nearly without cease since she’d spoken, but now he remembered her stinging condemnation of his father’s kingdom, of the Rayan annexation of Kodata, which Kaldur had always understood to be peaceful and voluntary...

"Yeah, she does,” said Roy. “Cute kid, complete pain the ass to travel with though. He'd sing this one song she taught him, all the fucking time--but he was a good kid. Less of a pain to travel with than you are, that's for damn sure. Even if it was a two week trip from Raya to Atlantis, it was worth it."

“So that was the deal?”

“About the sum of it. I arrange for safe passage for both her son and herself to Atlantis, she hands me intel about your movements and your plans for a few weeks. That and a few extras from her medical kit. What I didn’t anticipate was her hand delivering you to me.”

Kaldur scowled at the reminder. Thinking of the events of that morning – already they seemed so distant in the past – made him wonder where Artemis and Conner were now, if they were safe. They could have traveled leagues by now, and in any direction. Even if he made it out of his current predicament, would he be able to find them?

“Give me your hand,” he finally said, finished with the topic. He didn’t want to dwell on Raquel’s betrayal. It only drove deeper the conflict he felt within. “Let me see if I can make it fit to turn against me tomorrow.”

"Was that sass, your highness?" Roy quipped as he handed over the offending appendage. The prince's hands were firm but cautious as they unwrapped the wound. Roy winced as the tacky fabric pulled away from the long cut.

"It does not appear to be infected," the Rayan commented, ignoring him, before reaching into a side pouch. He withdrew a simple copper vessel, about the size of a pillbox. Opening it, he revealed a light green powder. Carefully, took a pinch of the powder in one palm, mixing equal measures of liquid from the vials into it until he had created a smooth paste.

Corking the vials and shutting the vessel, Kaldur dipped one finger into the paste. He gathered up as small amount of the stuff before working it into the skin around Roy’s cut, careful not to disturb the scab and restart the bleeding. "This should speed the healing process and keep infections at bay," said the prince. "I found that it also relieves the tightness as the skin regrows. Raquel was-- _is_ \--a skilled healer. You should be fine in a few days."

"I thought you didn't intend to let me live past tomorrow," said Roy. A strange calm had sprung up between them in the crowded space. He wouldn't call it intimate--they were still enemies, stalemate or no. But there was something peaceful about the other man, his hands cradling Roy's wrists in the light of the fire. It was... pleasant.

Dangerous.

Kaldur released the other man’s hand as he finished rewrapping it and sat back.

“I will not kill you while you cannot defend yourself ably,” he said, taking one of the dried strips of fish from the bag between them. “I know you think me a barbarian and a fool for this. Fortunately for you, I do not particularly care what you think of me.”

He took a bite of the fish and settled back against the wall of the little cave, eyes lifting to the other man’s challengingly. Once again, Kaldur was struck by how young the Fiend was, though the scars that littered his chest and arms hinted that he’d lived plenty in his time.

“Do you have a name?” Kaldur finally asked, figuring that it was only fair – clearly the other man knew his.

"Roy Harper," Roy grunted as he examined his hand. The bandages were wrapped neatly. More neatly than he himself had ever managed, at least.

“Roy,” Kaldur scoffed, raising an eyebrow. “ _The king._ Well, I suppose your country is in need of one.”

“There’s that sass again--you’re far too puckish to be the son of David of Raya. Your mother--where was she from? Somewhere with a superior sense of humor to Raya, I’d wager.”

“My mother is dead,” Kaldur lied evenly. He had no idea if his mother lived or not, and it wasn’t like her heritage was a well-kept secret in the Rayan court, but if the other man--Roy--if Roy didn’t already know, he saw no need to inform him. It had stung enough to know that Raquel was running away to Atlantis, just as his mother once had.

When the Reginian didn’t respond, Kaldur let the silence continue, feeling deeply weary, perhaps wearier than when he’d first awoken after being laid low by Roy’s arrow. Part of him wondered if the day hadn’t all been some sort of fever dream, that the Savage Land salve had indeed addled his mind and he’d awaken to Artemis’s incredulous rage that he’d ever do something so stupid.

Finally, with the prospect of a long night ahead, Kaldur decided that his odds of being slain in his sleep were slightly outweighed by his odds of contracting hypothermia should he stay in his soaked gear. Reaching beneath his pauldron to feel for the first of the many buckles that held the heavy plate in place, Kaldur began the slow, methodical process of removing his armor. Roy watched on without comment, blue eyes reflecting the firelight, until Kaldur had stripped down to just his tunic, at which point the Rayan prince hesitated.

“Do you mind?” he asked pointedly.

“Not at all,” Roy replied. “For a brainwashed fool, you’re not horrible to look at.”

Kaldur felt heat rise to his cheeks. “I suppose that,” he spat, “Is another tidbit you learned from your informants?”

“I don’t need _informants_ to tell me that,” Roy replied as he stretched out by the fire, tugging one arm across his chest to pull the weary muscle. The light of the fire highlighted the sharp planes of his biceps and lent a glow to his red hair. He smirked up at Kaldur, mouth twisted in a mocking grin. “I got _that_ after the first five minutes of talking to you.”

“I am betrothed, you know,” Kaldur shot back tightly, turning his back when he realized the other man wasn’t actually going to look away. As soon as he’d laid the garment out to dry by the fire, he reached for his mail shirt and slid it back on, not just for modesty’s sake but because the present conversation had done little to put him at ease. Not that he cared what the Reginian thought of his inclinations, but he had no energy to put up with being mocked at the moment.

And yes, so his betrothal to Artemis was hardly official, more something their fathers seemed to think was inevitable than an official contract, but he owed his would-be assassin no such details. Resuming his seat by the fire, Kaldur cast one more glare toward the other man and reached for his water satchel.

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” Roy replied. He was honestly a bit bewildered by the prince’s reactions. Roy had made no secret that he thought the Rayan a fool for his whole-hearted belief in his father’s good intentions. Shrugging it off as a sign that prudish youth was simply unused to taking a compliment, Roy wandered over to the sleeping pallet. “Wake me in two hours,” he demanded. “If you give yourself the whole watch I might just let you fall down the cliffs when we scale them. You’d be about as useful.”

“I would not put it past you to push me,” muttered Kaldur, settling back against the wall of the cave and straightening his posture – always easier to stay awake sitting up properly. “Sweet dreams, northern scum.”

“Right back at ya, you prissy bastard,” Roy threw over his shoulder as he settled on the musty straw pallet. Tossing and turning, he found that the only comfortable way to sleep was on his side, facing the fire and the prince. Drawing the ratty blanket over his face to block his eyes, Roy settled in to sleep. The last thing he saw as his eyes drifted shut was the prince’s pensive face, golden in the flickering firelight.

* * *

Mid-morning saw the two men--neither any more dead than he had been the day before, much to their mutual surprise--traversing through yet another deep, gnarled wood. The cliffs were behind them, having posed only minor difficulty after Roy had procured a rope from his hideout and used it to aid in their descent, which had taken the better part of an hour.

Now, without the difficulty of scaling down a rock face not quite dried from the previous night’s rain, Kaldur found his thoughts wandering in unpleasant directions, pulled this way and that by the events of the last two days.

Yesterday morning, he had been a prince in command of an army, healed and moving toward what he felt had been certain victory on the Reginian front. Yesterday afternoon, he had been a man consumed by rage and betrayal, driven only by the desire to separate the Fiend’s head from his shoulders. Yesterday evening, he had been a traitor to his allies and an ally to his assassin. And today, he was...well, Kaldur had no idea what he was, today. The task before him was simple enough: ensure that no villagers fell to the Savage Landers’ blades. But the task after that…

For probably the eighteenth time in the last hour, a twisted root seemed to lift out of the forest floor and snare Kaldur’s foot, wresting his thoughts back into the present moment as he caught his balance and glared down at the damnable plant. It was as if even the very land wanted him dead.

"You're not very graceful, are you?" Roy quipped from ahead. The archer was stepping lightly through the forest, dodging hidden roots and vines with supernatural ease. "Did they not tell you there'd be plants before you charged forward to lead Daddy’s army to ‘glorious victory over the savage horde’? Maybe you would have reconsidered the war if they'd only told you there'd be vines?"

Kaldur remained silent, focusing his attention on keeping his footing. He'd not rise to the man's obvious baiting.

Rather than sink into blessed silence, the Fiend seemed to take his own quiet as encouragement. "Maybe I should write to the king," he said as he hopped over a large log. "Dear sire, I've made a discovery. Simply lay the path of the Rayans with a tangle of vines, and they shall become hopelessly enmeshed so that they cannot even swing a sword."

“You know these parts,” Kaldur said defensively as he hacked aside another branch. It wasn’t his fault that Raya was mostly flat, fertile farmland, and that his people had had the decency to lay down roads. “Are we close? I am eager to be done with the Savage Landers so I can turn my attention to silencing your insufferable chatter.”

Roy smirked in front, glancing up through the trees to orient himself with respect to the mountains.

“We’re close,” he confirmed. “Very close. The woods should start thinning soon. Maybe you’ll even be able to walk without embarrassing yourself.”

Kaldur bit back his retort, wondering more and more if it wouldn’t be worth it just to cut out the man’s tongue - he’d still be able to fire a bow, after all. But probably he’d be less amenable to a partnership against the Savage Landers. And besides, Kaldur wasn’t certain he had the stomach for that sort of thing, anyway.

True to the Reginian’s word, as they walked the sunlight began to filter through the foliage above just a bit more, and the trees began to slim, and finally Kaldur was pretty sure he could see the end of the forest ahead - a warm, shining pool of light at the trail’s end. The unnerving total hush of the wood began to lift. And then--

“Do you hear that?” Kaldur asked suddenly, stopping in his tracks to silence his own movements.

He could have sworn he’d heard the tell-tale sound of clanging metal from up ahead.

"Yeah," Roy whispered. "Looks like they didn't stop for the storm. We need to make this quick and sneaky if we want to beat them, so follow my lead."

With that he took off, eating up the ground between them and the village in a furious sprint. Kaldur followed as he was able, internally cursing his armor for its weight and its noisome clanking.

As they approached the village they began to hear more of the battle. Rather than the screams of villagers being slaughtered, the noise seemed more natural to an actual battle. There was the clanging of clashing swords and shields, the thud of arrowheads piercing through armor, the shrieks of dying and injured combatants.

The moment the first hut came into sight, Roy halted, ducking behind a large tree. Signalling to Kaldur to follow him, he clambered up into the tree's thick foliage to get a better view of the scene.

What he saw as he rose over the hut's roof wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting.

There were Savage Landers, that was for sure. But the people fighting them weren't men and women of the village, or one of the border patrols that frequented those parts. It was a group of three warriors, two of whom he recognized as the Rayan prince's own companions. The woman was laughing, perched up on a rooftop as she rained a hail of arrows down at her enemies. The man was laying into a group of mercenaries, roaring with rage as they tried to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

And there was another person, a cloaked figure who seemed to be herding the villagers away from the square as the other two held the mercenaries back. Occasionally they would throw up a hand and a stray arrow from the mercenaries would be deflected aside, right as the archer who fired it was either shot through by the woman or hacked to pieces by the man.

Kaldur’s eyes widened in astonishment as he finally hauled himself up high enough to see what the Reginian was seeing.

His first feeling was of deep, deep relief - Artemis and Conner were safe, they were well, they were if anything, acting more like themselves than they’d had a chance to since they’d departed on this ill-fated journey. Artemis in particular looked almost gleeful as she fired off arrow after arrow, her blonde hair spilling from her grey hood.

His next feeling was curiosity - who was the newcomer with his friends? He was sure he had never seen the person before, as their cloak - long, and midnight blue edged with brilliant red - was quite distinctive.

After that came a pragmatic sense of satisfaction as it dawned on him that this meant he no longer needed the Fiend’s assistance, and could proceed to dispose of him as originally intended. Unfortunately, this thought was immediately followed by an internal reprimand that damped his excitement down to embers - the man was still injured. It wouldn’t be fair to kill him right now.

“Shall we join them?” Kaldur suggested, though it seemed the two of them were handling the situation perfectly well. “Many hands make light work.”

"I don't see why not," Roy sighed, dropping back to the ground. “Just to be safe though, I'm going to stick to melee. I think if your assassin friend sees my arrows she's as likely to kill me as thank me for the help."

"I'd not permit her to steal that honor from me," Kaldur replied as he drew his swords. "But far be it for me to keep your cowardice from hampering you in battle."

With that, the prince darted toward the fray, quickly taking down one woman zeroing in on Artemis as he hurried to Conner's side.

"Little shit," Roy muttered, drawing his short sword.

If Kaldur heard the jab, he didn’t respond to it, instead lifting both his swords as he neared the melee surrounding Conner. His friend was surrounded on all sides by Savage Land mercenaries but was holding his own valiantly, broadsword cleaving through the pack as he unleashed his remarkable strength on his opponents. His face was contorted in a familiar expression of rage, as though the attack on the Reginian village was a personal affront to him. Biting back a smile--such an angry countenance oddly brought Kaldur great comfort--Kaldur threw himself upon the back and quickly fought his way to Conner’s side, leaving two brutes felled in his wake.

“Good morning, my friend,” he greeted as he drew up a blade to block a spear thrust from one of his adversaries. “I see you have not let the day go to waste!”

"When we finish here," Conner growled, decapitating one of his foes. The man didn't miss a beat, continuing to swing his broadsword with a lightness that spoke to his incredible strength. Temporarily disengaged, he stepped to aim a sharp, painful kick and Kaldur's calf. "I'm going to let Artemis torture you. _Where_ have you been?"

Kaldur winced and staggered back a step as the blow connected. Conner was not one to hold back. He would certainly have an attractive bruise to nurse later.

“Your friend always this cheerful?” Roy commented when he appeared at Kaldur’s side. He’d chosen to sneak around the back of the huts to stab an archer whom he’d spotted aiming an arrow at the knight’s throat.

“You picked up a stray?” Conner questioned, eyeing Roy as he stabbed a man through.

“It seems you did as well,” Kaldur deflected, cross-stepping in front of Roy to block a mace blow that would would have forced the Reginian to counter with both his hands, a painful feat with his bandaged palm. “This is one is not so much a stray as a horrible beast. But let us discuss all of these matters when the battle is over, yes?”

The whistle of an arrow had him ducking behind a foe, but it was one of Artemis’s - finished with her own targets, she’d apparently moved on to aiding them with theirs. Only a few goons remained, and it seemed their fear of the combined strength of their opponents was beginning to outweigh their bloodlust.

“If that’s who I think it is,” Artemis shouted down to him, “I’m using one arrow to shoot you _both_ through the throat.”

"If your archery is anything like your tracking, I don't think I have anything to worry about," Roy sniped, immediately cursing himself afterwards.

"Never mind," Artemis shouted down to Kaldur. "I don't care _who_ he is- I'm killing him anyways."

"We will discuss it," Kaldur shot back. "Do you see any more combatants?"

Artemis did a quick scan above the rooftops. "No, I think we're good."

She hopped down, jogging over the other three.

"I should go check on M'gann," Conner grunted, yanking his sword from a woman's chest. "She was evacuating the villagers- a group may have snuck around to get to her--"

"M'gann can handle herself, lover boy," Artemis commented, reaching the group. She immediately drew Kaldur into a careful hug. "Which is more than I can say for you, you _idiot._ "

Kaldur couldn’t help the broad smile that crossed his face as he returned the embrace, dropping both his swords to pull Artemis firmly against his chest. Fake betrothal or no, she was the closest thing he had to a sister, and he would never have forgiven himself had anything happened to her during his errand of revenge.

“I was worried about you, too,” he murmured, too quietly for anyone to overhear (except perhaps Conner, who had exceptionally good ears).

After a long moment he finally let his friend go, turning to face Conner.

“M’gann,” he repeated curiously. “I presume that is the other traveler with you. Is she - “

But he was abruptly cut off by a loud sound from somewhere around the corner, a series of sudden screams that came immediately followed by a loud _thud._

Conner had taken off before anyone could so much as open their mouth; Kaldur immediately bent to retrieve his swords and gave chase, Artemis on his heels.

The scene that greeted them when they rounded the last of the village huts was a confusing one, to say the least: fifty or sixty villagers huddled in the shade of a grove of oak trees, all staring in shock at a pair of figures before them. One, the stranger in the blue cloak, stood with a hand outstretched and a grim expression on her otherwise gentle face. The other (or what remained of him, a Savage Lander by the look of his equipment) lay beneath a rock twice the size of a human man that seemed to have dropped straight out of the sky.

"M'gann!" Conner shouted, running to the stranger. "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" he questioned, stopping before her. He settled his hands on her shoulders, eyes scanning her as if inspecting for damage.

Kaldur shot Artemis a bewildered glance but received only a long-suffering look in return. Apparently this odd behavior was no surprise to her. Roy, ignoring all of them, headed over to a woman who appeared to be the village elder. He pulled her aside and struck up a quick conversation. From his gestures to the crushed mercenary and to the wider village, Kaldur surmised that he was attempting to discern where the Savage Landers had come from.

An easy laugh pulled Kaldur’s attention back to his friends: M’gann was smiling, pushing her hood back to reveal a pale, freckled face framed by red hair.

“I'm fine, Conner. He didn't hurt me," she assured him, her hands coming to clasp his own shoulders in a comforting gesture.

"And even if he did, I'm pretty sure she gave him more than his fair share back," Artemis commented, inspecting the crushed man. "Damn, M'gann. You didn't tell us you could fling boulders."

“Artemis,” said Kaldur, trying to keep his face even  - who was this stranger, and what did she mean, _fling boulders? -_  “Would you like to do me the honor of introducing your new friend?”

But before Artemis could say a thing, the stranger had given herself a gentle slap on the forehead and disentangled herself from Conner’s concerned grip and fairly flown to stand before Kaldur.

“Of course! You must be Prince Kaldur’ahm,” she said, reaching out to clasp his hand in both of hers and shake it warmly. “Artemis and Conner have told me so much about you. It’s an honor to finally – oh, but I haven’t introduced myself. My name is M’gann M’orzz.”

“M’orzz,” Kaldur repeated, eyes flicking down to where she was still shaking his hand. “That is not a family name I have heard, even in these strange parts.”

The young woman smiled sheepishly.

“I am of Mars,” she explained. “So I don’t imagine you’d know anyone else with it, no.”

Kaldur blinked. He had heard of the land, yes, but he had never heard of a Martian coming all the way to the mainland, much less met one in the flesh.

“I see,” he said, casting a glance at Artemis and Conner. Did they believe her story? Should he? “And might I ask how you came to be traveling with my colleagues?”

Conner, who had crossed his arms over his chest as if at a loss with what to do with them now that M'gann had left his embrace, began to explain. "She found us after we--" he started, but was interrupted when Artemis flung one palm over his mouth, cutting him off.

Ignoring the knight's indignant glare, Artemis settled her free hand on her cocked hip.

"Not so fast," she snapped. "M'gann's weird, but she's not a _threat_ . We'll explain where she came from after you tell us why the _Fiend of Mists_ ," here she pointed at Roy, who had finished with the village elder and had assumed a position of disinterest, arms crossed, at their rear, "is following you like some sort of puppy!"

"Puppy?" Roy snarled indignantly. "Listen, Blondie, the only reason you have your precious prince back in one piece is because your soldiers have been burning down my villages and he decided to help me stop them. Now that the threat's handled? Our truce is over, so watch your mouth unless you want an arrow through it."

Conner and Artemis both turned, hackles raised at the threat.

"There's three of us and one of you, and this time you don't any trees to hide away in," Conner growled, hand halfway to his sword. "I wouldn't make any threats."

“At ease, both of you,” Kaldur ordered, taking a step between his friends and the Fiend and holding up his hand. “There will be plenty of time to slit one another’s throats later, but present circumstances compel us to work together. Artemis, Conner - have either of you the faintest idea why Savage Land troops are roaming the Reginian highlands, laying waste to villages at will? I know I never gave such an order, nor did I hear of one from His Majesty my father or any other general of Raya.”

In concert, the two flinched, hackles dropping instantly into downturned shoulders.

"Yeah," Artemis said quietly. Her eyes had dropped from glaring at Roy to the dirt. Conner's hand laid limp on his sword and his eyes joined Artemis's in their careful study of the ground. "Kaldur, look. Conner and I--we made it back to the troops, okay?

"Then what are you doing here?" Roy interrupted. Kaldur glared at him, causing him to snap back: "What? It's a valid question. Don't tell me that the fact that your second and third in command are tromping around in the backwoods looking for you instead of leading your company doesn't seem like cause for concern for you."

"Tricklieon took over the men," Conner blurted out. "He's a sorcerer from The Savage Lands - his real name’s Klarion. He's got them under some sort of mind control. Artemis thinks it’s something he's been slipping into the food. When we got back to them on the other side of the mountains..."

“Well not _real_ mind control,” M’gann butted in, looking like she’d tried very hard not to say anything but couldn’t quite stop herself. As everyone’s eyes turned to her, she blushed faintly. “Mainlanders have yet to figure out mind _reading,_ much less mind _control,_ but the soldiers were definitely...well, more mentally malleable than most.”

Kaldur’s gaze darkened further. How had he let such treachery take root right under his nose? Had he not sensed Klarion’s ill intent all along? Why had he not taken action sooner?

"In any case, it's a miracle we made it out at all," Artemis finished for Conner, finally meeting Kaldur's horrified gaze. "We came upon them at night, or I don't think we would have. We didn't barge into the camp because we didn't want anyone knowing that you were missing before we had the chance to do some damage control. We went to the command tent, and we heard Tricklieon talking to someone--" here Artemis paused. She seemed to struggle internally for a moment, glancing and Conner before she continued. "Someone who wasn't at the camp before we left," she went on, ignoring the looks Conner shot her way. "They were discussing battle plans, and I almost went in. But Conner, you know how good his ears are. And he heard, well--"

"Klarion was talking about taking our forces back to invade and capture Raya after they finish in Reginia," Conner finished. "That's when I noticed that the troops seemed... wrong. The guards at the tent were listless, like they didn't really see us. Artemis recognized it as a form of magic they use in the Savage Lands. It’s _dark_. Most people don’t use it, or don’t like it, even there.” Conner stopped for a moment, seemingly overtaken by disgust.

“Anyways,” Artemis continued. “I don’t know how, but somehow Klarion seemed to figure out that we were there outside of the tent. I felt...something, tugging at my brain, and then the guards were attacking Conner and me. We were able to get away without killing them, but getting out of the camp was tough. If the men had been moving normally, I don’t think we would have. When we made it out we headed back to the mountains- it’d be harder for them to pursue us that way, even on horses.”

“We made camp in a cave,” Conner continued. M’gann had moved to hold his shoulder, and he leaned into her touch. “We made the plan to come find you, see what you wanted to do. And that’s when we found M’gann.”

“Or rather, she found us,” Artemis amended. “But that’s probably more information than you need right now. The important thing is: where do we go from here?”

And suddenly, there was silence as all gazes turned to Kaldur - Artemis’s, worried and piercing; Conner’s, trusting and expectant; M’gann’s, curious and sympathetic; and Roy’s, skeptical and vindictive.

“You say they intend to return to Raya after they have carried out our plans to annex Reginia?” he asked after a moment of thought, provoking a nod from Artemis and a derisive laugh from Roy at the word ‘annex.’ “Then we must stop them before they so much as look south. We head to the frontlines - with five of us, we should be able to gather enough information to determine the source of Tricklieon’s - _Klarion’s_ \- coercion and attempt to reverse it. With the Rayan army returned to its senses, his men will be outnumbered four to one. We will send word to my father and inform him of this treachery, but put the matter to rest before the message even arrives.”

He set his jaw, the feeling of being in control (both of himself and the fate of his countrymen) settling over him warmly once more. As an afterthought, he turned to Roy, who was still standing at a safe distance behind the rest of them, and remarked:

“ _Then_ we will see about killing you.”

Roy opened his mouth, a cutting reply already on his tongue, when he was interrupted by a gentle hand over his mouth. Offended but too surprised to do anything, Roy glared at M’gann, who smiled shyly at him but declined to remove the offending appendage.

“Excuse me,” she piped up, “But I have to ask- why are you going to kill him? He helped us save the village.”

The prince opened his mouth for his own reply, but Roy overtook him.

“He’s invading my country,” Roy proffered bluntly after gently removing M’gann’s hand from his mouth. “He’s the prince of the kingdom of Raya. Which is at _war_ with Reginia, just in case your two new travelling buddies forgot to fill you in on that little detail. I know that Mars is pretty isolated, but even you should have heard about Raya’s recent aggression towards their neighbors.”

“But why would he be willing to save the villagers and still want to kill you?”

“Because Mr. Innocent Victim here is an assassin who’s already tried to kill Kaldur at least twice,” Artemis butted in. “He’s infamous across the Rayan and Savage Lands armies. Rumor has it he isn’t all that well beloved at home, either.”

“You tried to kill him?” M’gann asked, turning to Roy as her eyes widened in surprise and disapproval.

“ _Twice_ ,” Artemis repeated, just in case anyone had forgotten.

“That particular matter is not behind us, but for the time being let us say that it is beside us,” Kaldur said, holding up a hand to silence the others (not that Roy could have gotten a word in edgewise if he’d wanted to). “At present, our goals align – neither Raya or Reginia would fare well under Savage Land rule. We all have a vested interest in putting a stop to Trickli–- _Klarion’s_ schemes, and furthermore, I doubt we will find another as familiar with the terrain we must traverse to reach the enemy. He travels with us for the time being, unharmed.”

“How _generous_ of you,” Roy finally managed to sneer after waiting a beat to see if anyone _else_ had something to add, or whether he was going to get a hand to the face again.

“Considering you shot him and tried to burn my camp down?” Conner commented, glaring at the assassin. “You’re lucky we don’t just tie you up and carry you.”

“It’s not too late to consider that,” Artemis hummed thoughtfully. “You know, I think I do have some extra rope somewhere--”

“--tie me up and you’re never getting out of Reginia alive,” Roy threatened, backing away from the two grinning warriors.

“Enough,” said Kaldur, shaking his head. “M’gann – a friend of these two scoundrels is a friend of mine. I would love to know how you have come to this part of the world, but time is of the essence. If you intend to accompany us, perhaps we can get acquainted as we head north.”

“It would be my pleasure,” said M’gann, smiling at the prince’s formal manner. She cast a glance at Conner, who raised one eyebrow and smiled as if to say _told you so,_ then turned back to look at the village. It was intact, for the most part – moreso than the one from which Roy and Kaldur had come – but there was still some damage and a few injuries amongst the villagers. “Will they be all right?”

Unsure of the answer – did most Reginian villages have healers, or access to them? – Kaldur looked to Roy.

“We’re not completely helpless out here,” Roy grumbled. “These people have been living on the borders since before there were borders. Since their village isn’t burned down and half of them haven’t been massacred? They’ll be fine.”

“Excuse us for caring,” Artemis replied. “Do you think we could buy some supplies off of them, though? I don’t know about you, but I didn’t exactly have time to pack for a journey across the mountains after the cave-in you caused.”

“Cave-in? What are you talking about?” Roy asked as he weighed the leather pouch where he kept his coin. He hadn’t brought a lot for the journey (there’s no easier way to make yourself a target for cutthroat or thieves than a jangling purse of coins) and he hadn't brought any supplies either, having opted to rely on his caches hidden throughout the mountains.

“The cave in that drove us, and Raquel, into your ambush,” Kaldur answered, checking his own purse.

“I wasn’t responsible for that,” Roy said. “I mean, I wish I had the power to crash tons of falling rocks onto invading armies, but it’s a little outside of my skillset.”

“Then it was probably that little shit Klarion,” Artemis muttered. “One more thing to riddle him full of arrows for when we catch up to him, I guess.”

“Speaking of catching up, to answer your question- I can ask the villagers if they have any extra supplies to sell us. Besides that, as long as we plan our route right there a couple of places I know of where we can get some food,” Roy said, tucking his purse away. He didn’t plan on showing this band of assholes all of his hideouts, but it’d be more trouble than it was worth to truck all of their supplies around without a pack animal. “I didn’t exactly plan on spending a lot of coin on this trip though, so we’re going to have to pool our resources together to buy the necessities.”

“Consider it done,” said Kaldur. He was a frugal man by nature, but his pride wasn’t about to allow him to let his enemy foot the cost of their mission north. “Let us buy what we can here. The rest we will seek out as we go.”

* * *

Supplies, as it turned out, were not as plentiful as they had hoped. Months of besiegement by Rayan troops had left many Reginian cargo lines unreliable and understocked. But the villagers had been able to spare enough for about two days’ travel for the group, and Roy promised that further up in the mountains they’d find enough game to supplement their rations.

The smell of roasting meat proved the assassin had made good on that word, at least – after a grueling day of travel up into the mountains, the group had stopped to rest beside a tiny, crystal clear mountain lake, and Artemis and Roy had succeeded in felling a few plump lake fowl. Kaldur had been hesitant to make a fire, at first, worried that their proximity to his enchanted army made such an endeavor a dangerous one, but nightfall had brought a thick fog over the area that would obscure any smoke. Besides, Roy had promised that the area had only one narrow passage in and and one out – easy enough to defend against any nosy scouts.

“So,” said Kaldur to M’gann at last, seated between Artemis and Roy in the hope of preventing violence from breaking out. “You say your visit to our lands is some sort of spiritual journey? Is such a thing often undertaken by Martians, or is it unique to your clan or trade?”

“Well, it’s an old tradition,” said M’gann, wrapping herself up in her cloak a little more snugly. “Young Martians go on a journey off-island to learn about the outside world and help where they can. But it’s mostly carried out ritualistically in this day and age – not a lot of people ever actually leave. They just study and visit other parts of Mars, then undergo a special ceremony. I...was a little more old-fashioned, I guess, in deciding to leave altogether.”

Her tone of voice was hesitant, though, hinting that the decision was a little more complicated than mere ideology.

“It’s a shame you had to come when there’s a war on,” Roy said flippantly. “When we’re not busy being invaded by imperialistic ass-hats, we’re actually a pretty nice place to visit. If we live through this, remind me to show you around the capital one day.”

“I, uh. Suppose I should have done my research before picking a destination, huh?” M’gann replied, reddening.

“Yeah. Befriending armed strangers currently invading the country you’re planning on visiting? Not exactly a great way to ‘help’ out the local populace,” Roy said. He didn’t really blame the woman, but he wanted it to be clear to her that her new friends weren’t exactly the good guys in this situation. He was already up against three potential enemies when this weird… truce thing they seemed to have going finally dissolved. He didn’t need a sorceress who specialized in crushing people with rocks on their team as well.

Apparently the knight that the prince insisted on toting around didn’t appreciate Roy ragging on his new friend. The younger man _growled_ at him, blue eyes flashing and hand tightening fast around the hilt of his sword. “Hey, step off. She helped save your village, didn’t she?”

“A village that wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place if it wasn’t for you people,” Roy shot back, hand going to his own sword reflexively.

“Enough, all of you,” said Kaldur, not harshly, but firmly enough to draw all eyes back to him. “We will have plenty of time to threaten and kill each other later, but for the time being the safety of both our nations depends on our cooperation.”

He looked from Roy to Conner and back; both men relented begrudgingly after a moment, dropping their hands from their blades.

“Damn,” said Artemis, reaching up to turn the spit on which the water fowl were nearly done roasting. “Would have been a fun one to watch.”

“Save your bloodlust for Klarion,” Kaldur advised. “How is supper progressing?”

“Almost ready to go. While we’re waiting though, let’s talk watch schedules. I doubt our resident assassin--”

“--are you referring to the guy who kills people threatening his kingdom or the one trained by the Shadow Clan?” Roy scowled at Artemis from across the fire.

“--would be willing to sleep anytime soon, what with three of us being perfectly happy to kill his mouthy ass in his sleep,” Artemis finished sweetly, ignoring Roy’s jab. “I’m guessing we’re going to need to work out some sort of deal. While I’d happily let the bastard suffer, we do need him to be awake enough to tell us where we’re going. Seeing as that’d probably be a tough task for him on a normal day, I don’t think letting him stay up all night is an option.”

“You could hand over all of your weapons and let me hide them until morning,” Roy offered sarcastically.

“As if,” snarled Connor, whom Roy concluded either really disliked him or was actually just immune to jokes.

Possibly both.

“I understand your hesitance to trust us,” said Kaldur. “Especially given the many reasons you have given us to want you dead. But for the time being, Artemis is right – we need you alive as much as you need us. I will not ask it of my companions, but if it would help you to sleep more easily, I will give you my blade for the night.”

Roy tried to suppress it, he really did. He knew that acting like an ass was a guaranteed way of not winning the witch over to his side, but he just. Could not help it. The other man was just so _earnestly_ honorable.

He burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?” Roy managed to wheeze between bouts of breathless chuckles. “I mean, seriously? Oh, yes, oh honorable prince. I’ll feel so safe _cuddling_ your precious sword in the night while your trained assassin watches me in my sleep! Not to mention the raging half-giant you call a knight! Who could ask for better security?”

“This trained assassin can make it so you sleep for a lot longer than just a night if you don’t stop disrespecting her fiance,” Artemis sneered, tone like poisonous honey.

“Good luck finding your way out of the mountains,” Roy sneered back. “Like you said, blondie, you’re stuck here without me.”

“Actually, I have a map,” M’gann piped up helpfully.

At Artemis’s frankly _dangerous_ grin, Kaldur felt the need to intercede again.

“While a map is certainly helpful, and yes, perhaps something it would have been useful to address _before_ we set off with this fool in tow,” Kaldur began, tensing slightly to prepare himself to intercept Artemis should she choose this moment to attack, “I should still think it prudent to keep him alive for the time being.”

“Why?” Conner asked bluntly as he stood to remove the cooked birds from the fire.

“For one thing, we do not know if the map is up to date,” Kaldur put in. “With all due respect to your Martian brethren, M’gann, they are not seen in these parts with any sort of frequency, thus it seems unlikely the map reflects the current state of Reginia. For another matter, he is a valuable asset in combat, of which we may yet see plenty.”

“We could handle it,” Artemis scoffed.

“That may be so,” said Kaldur. “But I am not willing to risk our lives on such an unnecessary gamble. The Reginian poses no threat to us while we outnumber him four to one and his hand remains injured. And beyond that...he had the chance to take my life while I slept last night. I breathe still, and therefore I trust him, however reluctantly.”

He cast a glance at Roy, daring him to make some sort of asinine comment again.

Roy met Kaldur’s gaze somewhat reluctantly. While he was glad not to have to fend off an attack from Artemis, he didn’t quite know what to make of the prince’s defense of him. The map excuse smelled weak, and even the point about his use in combat smacked of hedging. It brought up a feeling in his stomach that was…not entirely negative. And certainly not something he wanted to address.

“Look,” he sighed after a tense moment of staring into those green eyes. “We made it through one night when it was just you and me. As long as either you or the Martain are awake whenever I’m off shift, everyone keeping ahold of their weapons shouldn’t be a problem. There may still be mercenaries creeping around, and I’d rather us all be armed if they decide we’re a soft enough target to try.”

“I believe that can be arranged,” said Kaldur, looking to M’gann. “If we divide the night up into three shifts with two sentries for each – I will take two shifts, or take mine alone – we should be safe enough. Conner, will you give me your word not to harm our guest if you share his watch?”

There was no way on earth he was putting Artemis and Roy on shift together. Even if it didn’t come to blows, their bickering would keep everyone else awake and negate the point of a watch.  But if Roy and Conner could share one watch and Artemis and M’gann could share a second, Kaldur could take the third himself.

“With the exception of his tongue suffering a sudden shortening if he talks badly of M’gann again,” Conner glared at Roy, “I can promise I’ll leave him be as long as he returns the favor.”

“Seeing as she’s the only one who hasn’t threatened my life today, I can assure that out of all of you M’gann is the most safe from my incredibly cutting wit,” Roy shot back.

“Artemis, is the food done?” M’gann asked before Conner could reply. Her smile was genuine but Roy could tell that from her tone that she was beginning to tire of the constant banter being flung about the fire. He couldn’t really blame her.

“Yeah,” Artemis replied, pulling the roasted bird from the fire. “I neglected to pack the good dishware, so I hope none of you object to using your fingers.”

“If his highness can manage, I’m sure we’ll all live,” Roy commented, pulling a wing off the bird.

Kaldur didn’t dignify the assassin’s jibe with a response, just accepted the leg Artemis passed him and dug in. A hard day’s travel and combat, not to mention the mental exhaustion of fighting his own _and_ his friends’ impulse to dishonorably murder Roy, had left him famished and eager for sleep.

“It is settled, then,” he said when he had finished his first few bites (it was quite good – Artemis had often proven adept at preparing food in the field, having apparently spent most of her childhood learning to fend for herself in the forests of the Shadowlands). “First watch extends until the moon is overhead, second watch will take over when it halves its descent, and third watch will carry on ‘til sunrise.  No one is to harm or threaten anyone else. We have plenty of enemies to face before we become them to each other again. Understood?”

He looked around the circle, receiving an earnest nod from M’gann and begrudging ones from the rest.

“Good,” he said. “I will take the second watch. Conner, Artemis – determine for yourselves who is best suited to the others.”

* * *

 

“There’re signs of a large party moving through this area just half a mile ahead of us,” Roy reported to the resting trio when he and Artemis returned from their scouting expedition. The party had made it through and over the mountains more or less intact, and if he and the assassin were reading the signs right then they were on the Rayan army’s tail. “I’d have more to tell you, but it seems that your little expert here disagrees with my interpretation of our findings.”

“The tracks we found were wide and deep. The horses that the Savage Landers brought with them have lighter, thinner shoes than the kind that Rayans’ use,” Artemis sniped at the man angrily as she plopped down next to M’gann. The red-headed woman offered her a flask of water, which she drained gratefully before continuing. “I don’t appreciate the condescension considering, yeah, in this situation? I _am_ the expert, dumbass.”

“It’s still not a good reason to assume Klarion split off from his main forces,” Roy argued back. “What possible reason could have for leaving a bunch of enchanted, drugged Rayan footsoldiers to wander around the border lands? Maybe Klarion’s horse just broke an ankle and he had it killed.”

“It would be like that shit to treat an animal that way,” Connor muttered from the place nearby M’gann. He was reclining in the sun, head propped up beneath his hands and eyes closed as he listened to the two archer’s debate. “But it’d also be like him to abandon a platoon of soldiers if they became an _inconvenience_.”

“We still know too little about his enchantment,” Kaldur frowned as he looked over the map M’gann had provided (Roy had vouched that it was serviceably up-to-date). “Whether he must remain close, or whether he can venture off and still trust that my troops will obey his whims...it would help make sense of what you have seen. But I am inclined to take Artemis’s interpretation – when he was traveling with us, he expressed no small amount of disdain for Rayan people and beasts alike. It is possible that this was an act, part of his persona as Tricklieon, but I do not see him trading in his lightfooted mount for one of our slower, studier mares so quickly. And the odds that they lost not only his horse but all those of his entourage seem slim.”

“But if you didn’t see any of their tracks with the Rayan soldiers’, then we’ve lost him, right?” M’gann asked. “Would it make sense to find the soldiers first and see if you can break the spell from there?”

“Our battle is not with the soldiers,” said Kaldur, shaking his head. “I fear that we would not release their minds quickly enough to avoid battle, and I have no wish to raise my blade against my own men and women.  Klarion is the one who knows how to lift his enchantment. We follow him. And if it seems he has already split from them, then we follow the Rayan soldiers’ tracks backwards until we find where he did so. Artemis – what do you think?”

“Our people aren’t going to get up to much trouble on their own,” she mused, fingering her bow. “If anything we can just hope that after we break the spell they’ll head back to Raya. Lieutenant Kafepat will lead them back without any problems.”

“I’m not sure if I trust your people in my territory,” Roy groused at her.

“First of all, we’re not in your territory anymore, we’re in the borderlands. Second of all, my soldiers aren’t Savage Land raiding parties. They’re good people,” Connor shot back.”

“Good people conducting an _invasion--”_

“Which will only become more dire if we allow the Savage Landers to take over Raya,” Artemis interjected. “The smart plan is to follow Klarion and kick his ass.”

“I can at least agree with you on the ass-kicking part,” Roy conceded, defeated. “But if your soldiers do raid Reginia--”

“Our heads will adorn the pile of their corpses, yeah, yeah, we get it,” Artemis dismissed. “Lets focus on tracking down Klarion, okay? I didn’t see anywhere where the tracks split away, so we can assume he covered them--”

“Or that you missed them,” Roy snarked.

“Which means you missed them too, dumbass,” Artemis snarled back. “He covered them, though I’m not sure how.”

“I can check to see if there’s any magical signature to follow,” M’gann interjected.

“There may be an easier way,” said Kaldur, finally lifting his eyes from the map. “Artemis, would you please show me the route you believe the Rayan army to have taken?”

She complied without question, stepping over to trace her finger along a route on the map. Roy had moved to observe over Kaldur’s shoulder and didn’t correct her, which Kaldur took as confirmation as he pondered his next words.

“If that is so,” he began, clearly thinking as he went. “Then the opportunities to take a small company on horseback off-route are somewhat limited, given the steepness of the mountains and the width and swiftness of these rivers. I would wager that Klarion took his leave of our soldiers here,” – he indicated a spot on the map – “or here. Both would seem to indicate that he is headed northeast, away from the Reginian capital and towards the southern shore of Grell Lake.”

“That’s a lot of guesswork for an enemy you know nothing about,” Roy pointed out, frowning skeptically. “If you’re wrong, we could lose the trail entirely.”

“If we hesitate too long, I guarantee we will,” countered Kaldur, looking at the map one more time before he folded it up and passed it back to M’gann with a nod of thanks. “Artemis, Roy – do you require food, water or rest before we proceed? We will need to make haste if we are to catch Klarion before the Rayan army leaves the cover of the mountains.”

“I’m good to go if Red is,” Artemis boasted, standing up to stretch and throwing Roy a challenging smirk.

The man frowned at her, choosing instead to lie back in the grass. “Well unlike Blondie here, I’d rather be fit to fight when we finally catch up with this Klarion person,” he snarked. “The light’s fading and he’s going to be setting up camp soon. We aren’t burdened down with horses, so moving in the dark shouldn’t be a problem. My vote is we rest now and catch him by surprise- so I’ll pass on the pissing contest, thanks,” he threw in Artemis’s direction, smirking up at her.

The younger assassin blushed furiously, and threw M’gann’s empty flask at his head. It connected with his forehead with a heavy _thunk_. Roy cursed lowly, rubbing the spot.

“And I thought you were supposed to be the sneaky one,” Conner commented to her from his own spot stretched out on the grass.

“Shut the fuck up, muscles,” she groused. “Kaldur- your thoughts? Or are we letting Mr. Shoots-from-the-trees run this thing now?”

“I would feel better if we were assured of Klarion’s trail before we planned any sort of attack,” said Kaldur, stooping to retrieve M’gann’s flask and brush it free of grass. “The cover of night can indeed play to our advantage, but it will certainly not help us determine whether or not we have guessed his path correctly. It should only take us an hour or so to reach the place where his possible paths must converge - there we can rest, look for signs of his progress, and wait for the dead of night to make our move.”

“A little of both plans,” said M’gann, nodding approvingly as Kaldur passed her back her flask. “Makes sense to me.”

Kaldur looked to Roy and Artemis in turn, waiting for one or both to raise objections. He had thought traveling with the Fiend alone was vexing - traveling with him _and_ Artemis seemed an efficient route to insanity.

“Right then,” Artemis said brightly, flashing Kaldur a tense smile. _We’ll talk about this later,_ it said. She then walked over to Roy, kicking him in the boots. “You heard his highness,” she said. “Get your ass up, Red.”

The man peered up at her from under his lashes, frowning. Eventually his eyes found Kaldur’s only, and he raised a brow. _Do you see this shit?_ it said, and Kaldur was forced to muffle his amusement at the archers’ antics.

“As his majesty wishes,” the redhead said lightly, getting to his feet. Conner rose as well, reaching down to help M’gann from her own spot on the grass.

“Lead the way, oh fearless leader,” Roy told Kaldur. There was, of course, an overtone of sarcasm to the demand, but beneath that…

Something like trust.

Trying to think nothing of it, Kaldur turned, following the map up the road and (hopefully) to Klarion.

* * *

 

The moon – a thick crescent, nearly half waxed – lit up the craggy faces of the mountainside with a surreal silver glow. Far below them, barely visible through the thick forest, Grell Lake shone an eerie blue-grey. Their gamble had paid off – they had picked up Klarion’s trail just as the sun had set, and followed it until the signs grew fresh enough to ensure they were less than an hour’s travel behind him.  Then, after a brief rest, Kaldur had decided that the moon was high enough. It was time to make their move.

“Four guards active,” Artemis reported in a murmur as they looked down from the cliffs (she had always had better night vision). “Two or three more asleep by the campfire. Lord Shithead’s probably in the tent.”

There was but one tent, and it was familiar, the very same that Klarion had brought with him when he’d joined their company back on the Reginian border.

“Good,” said Kaldur, keeping his voice similarly low. “We will eliminate the guards quietly, then announce our presence to Klarion. We need to know how to reverse the spell he has cast – we cannot kill him just yet.”

“Already on it,” a voice whispered to his left. Kaldur started, barely resisting the urge to yelp. Roy had snuck up to his side. The man had his bow drawn and ready. “If you’d be so obliged, Blondie?” the man asked quietly, mocking grin glinting in the moonlight. “The faster we take those four out the less likely they are to raise the alarm. I’d appreciate the help--” here the grin stretched dangerously, lighting the red head’s face up with an almost demonic delight. “--that is, if you think you can handle it?”

Artemis scoffed to Kaldur’s right, brushing up against him as she reached behind her for her bow. “First one to three buys drinks on the way back to Raya,” she replied, smiling nastily as she sighted down her own bow.  “If I haven’t killed you by then, that is.”

“You two are impossible,” M’gann murmured behind them. She and Conner were behind them, assembling the rope for scaling down the cliff. Well, Conner was assembling the rope. The Martian, who apparently (and appallingly, Kaldur thought privately) knew nothing of ropework, simply watched on. Kaldur guessed that she had no desire to see the guards killed. Despite her help in the village, he got the distinct impression that she was only comfortable with violence in cases of self defense.

There was a light _twang_ next to his ear as Roy released his first arrow, apparently already having sighted his target. Kaldur watched as one guard crumpled to the ground, far off to left in her patrol. Her comrade immediately to the right fell next, seconds after Artemis released her own arrow. The guards continued to fall in quick succession.

“Now, as for the ones that sleep,” he said as the fourth guard fell to his knees, “If Artemis and I scale the cliff we can tie them--”

“--No time for that,” Roy interrupted, and with another _twang_ an arrow appeared in the throat of one of the sleeping guards. The man thrashed feebly, gurgling, and Kaldur was certain that he would have woken his companions had not two arrows, one fletched in red and one in green, emerged from their own throats mere moments later.

“Nice shooting, Red,” Artemis, commented begrudgingly, hooking her bow back onto her back.

“Not too awful yourself, Blondie,” the man replied lightly, getting up to go check on Conner and the rope.

Kaldur ignored them, frowning as he watched last body stop writhing and lie still.

“Kaldur?” Artemis asked softly. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” replied Kaldur somewhat curtly, forcing his mind back onto the task at hand.

Delicacy was of little use in a time of war, or especially in the camp of a reprehensible traitor like Klarion. Yes, it would have been better, more honorable, to have faced the guards head-on, but with bands of Savage Land rogues laying waste to Reginian towns and threatening the future peace of Raya…

Straightening out and turning his attention to the cliff edge, he deliberately ignored the look Artemis was giving him and raised his voice just enough to be heard by Conner.

“Is the rope secured?”

The knight rose from his crouch, nodding silently. M’gann, who had averted her gaze while Roy and Artemis had taken out the guards, now looked back down at the encampment, expression apprehensive.

“Are you sure this is the best way to do this?” she asked. “You said he caused an entire cave to collapse before. Wouldn’t it be better to learn more about what he can do before we face him head-on?”

“There are five of us and one of him,” said Artemis, slinging her bow over her back and double-checking her quiver strap. “We’re not going to get better odds than that, and besides, apparently you can move mountains yourself. This will be over in minutes, trust me.”

Without waiting for a response, she lowered herself to the ground, took hold of the rope, and rotated her lower body over the edge of the cliff.

“That takes a lot of concentration, and I’m not very accurate,” M’gann mumbled uncomfortably.

Conner reached out to touch her arm in reassurance without a word, then followed Artemis’s suit.

“She’s cocky,” Roy commented quietly to Kaldur as he prepared to clamber down after them. “I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten you all killed yet.”

Kaldur scoffed. “You’re one to talk. Who is the one who decided that it was wise to take on a platoon of forty trained soldiers?”

Roy smirked back up at him. “I wasn’t after your soldiers, Your Highness. Just _you_.”

With that the assassin slid down the rope, leaving Kaldur frowning in consternation in his wake.

The group crept along the cliff’s base, choosing to circle around the ring of dying firelight rather than to cut through its glow to Klarion’s tent on the other side.

“Big Guy, Magic-- you two stay back here as support. The prince can guard the entrance while Blondie and I go put our skills to use,” Roy whispered as they crept along.

Conner tensed, and Kaldur feared that he would argue. Conner was not, in truth, capable of much below a low shout when roused, and the assassin attempting to give him orders was sure to provoke his ire.

M’gann saved the night, however, laying a gentle hand on Conner’s shoulder before he could respond. A look passed between them, unreadable to any outsider, and the knight’s hackles settled. He and M’gann remained behind, watchful, as the other three snuck up on the tent from the cover of the shadows.

They approached the tent’s entrance flap. Kaldur took a guard post off to the side, where his presence would not be seen when they snuck through the cloth opening. Roy slipped in quietly, keeping low to the ground to minimize his silhouette that would appear against the firelight in the brief moment that the tent flap was opened. Artemis followed suit.

Stilling, the two allowed their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Roy scanned the tent, searching for their target.

Spotting the low cot in the far left corner of the tent, Roy moved to creep along the tent wall. The cot’s head faced the back wall of the tent- a foolish way to set oneself up, leaving the entrance unwatched. Roy figured the idiot had merely desired to keep his back to the light, the better to sleep.

He and Artemis crept quietly to the cot. Artemis took a low position by the head, signalling with a nod that Roy should take the side.

The two positioned themselves so the little lordling--a dark shape wrapped in fine blankets at the center of the bed—would have nowhere to run if he was to wake.They paused a moment, the silence tense and still as they each drew a long, careful breath. Then, without exchanging so much as a look or a nod, both lunged forward, Artemis to seize the man’s protruding arms, Roy to hold down his legs through the blanket.

But as soon as the assassins’ hands had made contact, the shape beneath them let out a snarl, began to writhe and twist and, to their mutual horror, reshape itself.

“What the – “Artemis gasped, attempting to retain her grip on the thing even as it shrank away from her grasp.

“Get away,” Roy barked, letting go and taking a hurried step back. For once, Artemis didn’t argue, jumping backwards just as a large claw swiped into the space she’d just been occupying. For where there had once been a man in the bed, there was now a large, hissing beast, feline in shape but obviously demonic in nature.  Clawing its way out of the blankets, the creature let out a self-satisfied yowl and launched itself towards the tent flap.

“Kaldur!” Artemis called out in warning as the thing made for the exit.

The flap lifted, and the prince’s face appeared for a split second before, with a _whoosh_ , every wall of the tent burst into full flames. Crying out in surprise and pain, Kaldur went stumbling backwards, swiping out for the fleeing beast with his right sword but missing wildly.

“Out!” Roy snapped as the flames pressed in on him and Artemis, survival outshouting alarm in his head. Without hesitation he seized Artemis’s arm and barreled forward, using his sword to push aside the burning flap. The two of them charged into the open air, flanking Kaldur and looking around the camp, which was now lit a brilliant orange from the fire.

“Where’d that thing – “Artemis hissed, fumbling to nock an arrow as she looked around for the cat creature, which seemed to have disappeared into the shadows. The words died on her lips as those very shadows, cast by the trees on the edge of the clearing, slithered across the ground and erupted from the ground to form the shape of a familiar man, albeit taller than he’d ever appeared to them. Now he loomed above the three warriors, a sickeningly wide grin splitting his face.

“Very good, Teekl,” he purred, his eyes little more than black slits as he regarded them. “A warm welcome for our guests.”

A shiver of pure fear made its way down Roy’s back, like ice being dragged down his spine. He’d never actually met Klarion, but this… _thing_ wasn’t what he’d expected from the Rayans’ descriptions.

The two in front of him were obviously shocked--Kaldur stood stock-still in front of them, swords drawn and eyes fixed on the monster before them. Artemis had managed to point her bow at the beast, but her arms were tight with more than the tension of keeping her weapon drawn. Roy glanced out of the corner of his eyes to the corner of shadows where Conner and M’gann still hid. With luck, Klarion had failed to notice them.

“I see you survived my cave-in, little prince,” Klarion hissed out. His voice was insidious, dripping with menace and slinking like the shadows that seemed a part of his very form. His grin, impossibly, seemed to stretch even wider as he ran a black, forked tongue over his inhumanly sharp teeth. “Lucky me.”

“I may have had something to do with that,” Roy interrupted against his own better judgment, and those black slits flicked their focus to him.

“So you’re the Fiend?” Klarion giggled. “How… quaint. I’d been hoping for something a little more fun to be lurking out there in the Reginian forest, a real challenge—but you’re just another mortal. How disappointing.”

“Klarion!” Kaldur called out sharply, and those dark eyes flicked back to the prince. Roy tried not to feel too embarrassed by his relief.

The prince continued, stepping forward towards the demon. The man was truly courageous. Or perhaps, as Roy had once suspected, just truly stupid.

“What was the purpose of healing me only to kill me in the mountain pass?” Kaldur demanded. “What purpose have you for my troops, when you would abandon them to wander?”

“Oh, they’re not _wandering,”_ Klarion replied, malicious grin unfaltering as his shadow-form began to circle the group slowly. Artemis kept her bow trained on him, Kaldur and Roy rotating to follow the enemy with their eyes. “But I suppose it’s hard to see the big picture when you’re all so puny and close to the ground.”

“He’s playing with us,” Artemis spat.

“Obviously,” Klarion leered, letting out a spine-tingling laugh. “Do you not like this game? Shame. Let’s try a new one. How about _cat and mouse?_ ”

As he spoke the last few words, the demon creature from the tent erupted from the shadows once again, even larger than before, pouncing towards Roy with a hideous yowl. Roy dove instantly for the ground, somersaulting to the side as the cat-creature sank its claws into the ground on which he’d been standing a split second earlier. At the same time, Artemis released her arrow, sending it hissing towards Klarion, but his chest simply opened up to let the projectile through. It sailed uselessly into the night, leaving her gaping in surprise.

Recovering quickly, the creature - Teekl, Klarion had called it - snarled and turned for Kaldur, who pivoted to lift his swords defensively as the thing prowled towards him.

“Do we have a plan, here?” Roy barked out as Kaldur narrowly parried a swipe from Teekl’s dark, massive paw.

“Kill them both!” Artemis shouted, firing off another two arrows; this time, Klarion’s body twisted and slimmed, contorting its way out of their paths easily.

“A _real_ plan?” Roy pressed, casting a glance at Kaldur, who in turn had cast a glance at the shadows where Conner and M’gann still lurked, in theory. Teekl charged once again, teeth gleaming in the moonlight; Kaldur sidestepped and took a swing at him, but his arm jerked mid-slash as though pulled by an invisible string, and the blow went wild.

“Picking on a little kitty,” Klarion said, sounding pouty, even offended as he lowered his hand. “You’d think a prince would have better manners.”

“And you’d think a witchboy would have the guts to fight his own battles,” Artemis snarled as tent tent blazed higher. “Get down here and fight!”

“I don’t think that’s--“ Roy began dubiously.

“--if you insist,” Klarion cooed, cutting him off.

And he rushed forward, shadowy arms elongating and arcing towards Artemis. The archer vaulted backwards and out of the way but landed dangerously close to Teekl, who immediately lashed out with one razor-clawed paw. Swiftly, Roy flicked a small knife from his bracer; the blade caught the creature on the shoulder and sent it reeling back with an annoyed yowl.

“You’re welcome,” Roy muttered as the beast turned its attention to him, tail swishing.

Kaldur, meanwhile, had rushed to engage Klarion and defend Artemis, but his mind was racing: this had not been the plan. They needed information from Klarion--how was he controlling the soldiers, and to what end?--but clearly they had lost the element of surprise and the bargaining position it was supposed to have brought them. As he brought one blade cleaving through the air towards Klarion, only to have it slice through his form like it was smoke, he wracked his brain for a way to return the advantage to them.

“Not so confident without an army at your back, are you, Prince of Raya?” Klarion teased. As he spoke, his hands twisted, opening up what seemed to be a hole in the very air, a little pocket of true darkness that grew into a pulsing sphere suspended at his fingertips. “Not sure what to do without Daddy giving you orders?”

Flicking his hand, he send the darkness streaking towards Kaldur like a ribbon. Unsure of the nature of the threat but too close to dodge effectively, Kaldur threw up his swords to attempt to parry and was knocked forcibly backwards, struggling to keep his balance.

“Kaldur!” Artemis shouted, letting fly another arrow. She knew she had no chance of hitting the sorcerer, but it served well enough to distract him from the prince. “Are you alright?”

Kaldur managed a nod, slightly dazed but otherwise unharmed, and shifted to face their cackling opponent as he circled around them, cornering the three warriors up against the burning tent.

From the shadows near the cliff’s base, Conner gripped the pommel of his sword, eyes darting around the campsite as he tried to find the best angle of attack. The Fiend he couldn’t care less about, but the only two people he has ever been able to call friend were in peril, and he wasn’t the type to stand by and watch.

When seconds ticked past without an opening. Conner growled in frustration, preparing to charge in. Hopefully at the very least, the surprise would give him an advantage.

He had leapt half to his feet when a strange force, invisible to his eye, pulled him back down.

“We need a plan,” M’gann whispered, eyes flicking across the fray as she lowered her hand.

“Right,” Conner muttered, fingers tight around his pommel as he crouched beside her. “Arrows don’t hurt him, so my sword’s useless.”

He grit his teeth in frustration. It wasn’t often he felt helpless--he’d always been stronger and faster than most of his opponents. Facing a man--a creature--that was apparently impossible to actually hit was an unpleasant prospect.

“Every magic user has some sort of vulnerability,” M’gann reassured, worrying her lip as she watched her new found friends frantically dip and dive to avoid Klarion’s shadowy blows. “We just need to figure out what his is.”

“Well, figure it faster,” Conner snapped, before he seemed to recall whom he was speaking to, and softened his voice. “Please.”

Klarion was at an obvious advantage--whatever Conner thought of the petty, childish diplomat he pretended at (which wasn’t much), he was powerful and, worse, mysterious. The man was like the shadows that fought for him, twisting, formless, and dangerous.

Blinking in realization, Conner turned to M’gann, an idea sparking in his mind. “Do you know a spell to make light?”

“No,” said M’gann. “But we may not need one. Look --”

She lifted a hand and pointed. At the edge of the fray, Klarion’s tent was beginning to burn its last, the flames licking at the skeleton of the posts. Conner furrowed his brow as his eyes followed her gesture, then suddenly his eyes widened.

“I got it,” he said. “Stay here.”

Wresting a sealed flask from his belt -- oil, to keep his sword clean and well-tended -- he pulled the cork out with his teeth, then poured the whole of the flask over his blade, running a hand over it quickly and carefully to spread the stuff out. Then, casting a glance up to orient himself, he rose to his feet, let out a bellow of challenge, and went running into the fray.

Artemis glanced over at that familiar sound, firing off another arrow into Klarion’s dark shape -- one of her last, she noticed grimly. For a moment, her heart lifted; the moment Conner joined a fight was usually the moment the tide turned in their favor. But to her chagrin, the knight charged right _past them,_ bypassing the fray altogether.

“Are you crazy?!” she shouted, jumping backwards just in time to avoid a swipe of Teekl’s thick, menacing tail.

“Yes!” Conner shouted back. “Just crazy enough!”

And before Kaldur could open his mouth to yell out caution or advice, as he usually would, suddenly Conner came charging back, his massive blade wreathed in flames -- he’d set the whole thing alight using the tent fire. Hefting the blade up, he swung it in a powerful arc towards Klarion’s shadowy form. As before, the sorcerer began to twist away, but a pained shriek announced that he hadn’t done it quite fast enough, and the tendrils of flame seemed to eat into his shape, making its edges momentarily ragged.

“Use light!” Conner shouted to his allies. “Fight him with the fire!”

Gritting his teeth, Kaldur spun on his heel to face the still burning tent behind him. Heat had never been a friend of his--standing even this close was enough to make him feel light headed and dizzy. Nonetheless, he stumbled towards the tent, hacking at a section of flaming canvas to free it. He had almost managed to cut the section free when a sudden, nauseating wave of white-hot pain swept through his left arm, sending him crashing to his knees.

As he fell, Kaldur heard a triumphant yowl from the direction of Klarion’s beast. Realizing that it had spotted his moment of weakness and was doubtlessly coming in for the kill, he struggled to lift his swords in defense. It was as though the heat of the flames had drained the strength from his muscles, reducing his limbs to useless deadweight.

Another yowl, and Kaldur could smell the reek of the beast, all rotten meat and sulfur, as it leapt towards him. Before it could rend his flesh, however, he felt himself being shoved bodily aside, tumbling a few vital feet away from the fire.

“Get up, idiot!” Artemis screamed, parrying Teekl away with the short dagger she kept at her side. “Dammit, Kaldur! Get up!”

Teekl snapped its jaws close to Artemis’s face, bathing her in the stench of fetid flesh and brimstone. Furious, she kicked at its belly, hard leather boot digging into its muscled side. The beast yowled, dancing away as Conner rushed to his friend’s aid, sparks flying off his flaming sword. Ducking nimbly under the blade, Teekl leapt for Artemis once more, spittle flying from its gaping mouth.

Artemis attempted to dodge aside, stumbling when one of Klarion’s shadows grasped her ankle. Bracing for the impact of teeth, she was surprised when instead the beast howled in fury, reeling back from her.

Scrambling away on her hands, feet kicking, Artemis looked up to see an arrow, red fletching highlighted by the firelight, protruding from Teekl’s chest. Black, hissing blood bubbled from the wound, soaking its tawny fur.

The beast yowled, shaking itself furiously, as if trying to dislodge the arrow. Across the fire Klarion screamed, face twisting as he collapsed to his knees.

“Damn you, archer!” he howled, and it took a moment for Artemis to realize he was not addressing her, but rather the Fiend, who stood with bow drawn just beyond the blazing tent, having used the glare of its light to mask his movement from Klarion and his familiar. “I'll have your life, you worm!”

Struggling to his feet and coughing, Kaldur retrieved his swords and took a step towards Artemis.

“Klarion,” he rasped as he helped his ally to her feet, each looking the other over to assess their respective damages. “You _will_ tell us where you’ve sent my troops.”

Lifting his sword, Kaldur advanced on the sorcerer, who was still on his knees, his labored breaths wracking his frame.

A sharp snarl at his back made him glance back towards Teekl, who was shrinking away from Conner-- the knight had hefted his blade, preparing for a deadly blow.

“Stupid boy,” Klarion spat, glaring spitefully up at the advancing Rayan prince. “I’ve sent them _home._ They’ll reach your border within a week. _”_

“The invasion,” whispered Artemis. Kaldur turned to look at her, and found that her face was dead white.

“You better start making sense,” Conner growled. “What do you mean, home?”

“We have to get back,” said Artemis, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.

Roy stepped forward, another arrow notched. He drew back, aiming directly for Teekl’s throat.

“He’s invading Raya,” he said to Kaldur, gaze fixed on the beast. “You’ve been betrayed even worse than you thought.”

Kaldur tensed, stepping closer to Klarion, swords raised.

“My father won’t allow the kingdom to fall.”

Klarion lurched forward, falling to his hands. Face tilted downward, he hunched over in the weakening light of the fire. His body began to shake, his arms trembling.

Kaldur edged slightly closer, wary but with a vague sense of victory -- a sense that dispelled, like smoke on the wind, when he realized that the sorcerer was not trembling from fear, or from pain. The monster was _laughing._

“You _fool_ ,” Klarion chuckled, head snapping up so his crazed, eerily glowing eyes could stare directly into Kaldur’s own. “How will your _daddy_ save your kingdom,” he said sweetly, voice dripping with saccharine pity, “When there’s no one there to save _him_?”

And suddenly, the shadows around them rushed towards him, piling into an ever-darker pool around the sorcerer’s kneeling form. At the same time, Teekl let out one more savage snarl and lunged in the same direction. Conner shouted and took a swing, but only succeeded in clipping the beast’s tail.

“Get back,” Roy barked, just as Kaldur did the exact opposite, throwing his full weight behind a lunge toward the sorcerer. But before the blow could land, Teekl’s form collided with Klarion’s, the darkness turned absolute, and man and beast disappeared into it, leaving the prince swinging at nothing.

With a cry of frustration, Kaldur drove one blade into the ground, leaving it standing in the soil as he straightened out and looked to the others, his breath labored.

“Are you alright?” he asked, directing his question at Artemis, whose face was pale in the dying light of the fire.

Artemis nodded wordlessly, swallowing as she stared at the place where Klarion had disappeared. The spot was now a blackened patch of grass, glowing an eerie red at the edges.

“We need to leave, quickly,” said a new voice, accompanied by the sound of hoofsteps -- M’gann emerged from the shadows on the back of one horse, holding the reins of another two. Their tack signaled Savage Land allegiance; clearly she’d stolen them from further back in the camp. “Klarion may be gone, but his magic isn’t.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kaldur, retrieving his blade from the ground.

“Trust me, I can feel it,” said M’gann, her voice more urgent. “We don’t have time for specifics -- saddle up and let’s get out of here.”

“I trust her,” said Artemis, regaining her voice. Conner had already moved to obey, wiping his smoldering sword on the grass and climbing up behind M’gann. After a split second’s hesitation, Roy and Kaldur followed suit.

“Who’s it going to be, me or your _fiancée?”_ Roy asked pointedly as Artemis saddled up, leaving only one horse riderless. “We can all agree it’s a bad idea for me and her to ride together.”

Kaldur moved towards Artemis’ steed without a word, only to have the archer reach out to grasp his arm.

“Be careful,” said Roy, his voice so low only Kaldur could hear it. “This is bigger than you think, and she knows something.”

“Now!” M’gann urged, spurring her horse into a trot.

Pulling away from Roy with a dismissive grunt, Kaldur hurried to mount up in front of Artemis, who was giving them a questioning look.

“What was that about?” Artemis asked as she urged their horse forward, after M’gann and Conner.

“We ride south!” Kaldur shouted to the group as he cracked the reins. He did not respond to Artemis’ question, nor could he fail to notice the odd tension  in her voice when she’d asked it. “To Raya!”

As they rode into the night, Kaldur didn’t look back to see if Roy was following, or to see if Artemis’ face was still as pale as it had been when Klarion had spoken of his plan.

If he had, he might have seen black flames slowly engulf Klarion’s camp as they fled, splintering the tents and the guards’ bodies into dark wisps on the midnight wind.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's all they wrote for now, folks! Stay tuned in the next few months for our second chapter, and please feel free to leave us comments, criticism, adoring praise, and first born children on this one.


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